Amy Rodriguez
Affiliate Summit
1253 Springfield Avenue, Suite 327
New Providence, NJ 07974-1935
tel (908) 364-2767
fax (908) 364-4627
Articles in FeedFront Magazine are the opinions
of the author and may not necessarily reflect the
views of the magazine, or its owners. FeedFront
Magazine always welcomes opinions of an
opposite nature..
For more information, visit: www.FeedFront.com
Interested in advertising? Please visit http://
feedfront.com/advertising/ or email us at:
contact@feedfront.com

It’s an exciting time for affiliate marketers
with all indicators pointing to the growth of
our industry.
Each day, as the affiliate marketing industry
expands, competition heightens. To be
successful, an affiliate marketer must be on
the forefront of unique and effective ways
to market online. This requires creativity,
and a lot of it.
A fascinating study that appeared in the
January, 2002 issue of the Physical Educator
concludes that there is a constructive
relationship that exists between the creative
thought process and physical fitness.
Additionally, research form a McCoy and
Evans study in 2002 indicates that physical
environment also plays a role in fostering
creativity.
In this issue, we explore the categorical
effects of physical fitness on affiliate
marketers in our cover story, Walking the
Walk (p. 7) and in Affiliate Fatblogging
(p. 23). In both articles, affiliate marketers
discuss the role of physical fitness in

their efforts to live a healthier and more
productive lifestyle.
Whether you’re a cubicle warrior in an office;
work from home or from Starbucks, you
may also enjoy The Workspace of Affiliate
Marketers, (p. 29) where we examine the
sacred spaces where all things are possible.
As athletes train their body and mind for
maximum sports performance; marketers
need to prepare the same in order to keep
a competitive edge in the fast-paced world
of business.
Is your body and mind prepared to be
successful?
Missy Ward & Shawn Collins
FeedFront Co-Editors in Chief

Get In Your Subscribers’
Address Books Now By Justin Premick
Essentially, Yahoo! is making it easier
for users to do the same thing with
emails that we all do with our postal
mail - we look through for messages
from friends, family and other
people we know and put it in an “A”
pile that we actually read, and we
take everything else and put it in a
“B” pile that we typically don’t read.

Justin Premick

The writing is on the wall for
marketers who aren’t getting
subscribers to add them to their
address books.
Soon, if you’re not in there, it’ll
be even easier for customers and
prospects to ignore your email
marketing campaigns.
On their official blog, Yahoo! Mail
announced that users can now
toggle from viewing all mail to only
mail from their contacts.
“You get a lot of emails, some good
(from friends, family, even favorite
interests that you’ve added to your
Address Book), and a lot of not-soimportant emails (special offers,
newsletters, emails you rarely read).”
So they’ve introduced a way to
quickly separate those “important”
emails from the “not-so-important”
ones.

Many of us already do it with
email, too, by using filters - but up
until now we had to set those up
manually. It’s not hard to do, but it is
an extra hoop that most email users
wouldn’t jump through.
A one-click filter like the one Yahoo!
has created makes faster email
filtering accessible to even novice
users. Don’t be surprised if you see
other email programs do something
similar.
Make Sure Your Email Doesn’t Get
Filtered Out
It is vital that you get subscribers to
put you in their address book, but
how?
1. Ask on your thank you page.
2. Ask in your welcome email (and
maybe other emails).
3. Build a relationship with
subscribers.

Given a choice between viewing “all”
email, and only email from preferred
sources (like your contacts), which
one are you going to spend time in?
To take a “tree falling in the forest”
view of it, if an email goes to an
inbox, but nobody ever looks at that
particular inbox, is it really delivered?
If you think about it, as more
email programs implement tools
like Yahoo!’s and the email that’s
important/relevant to the recipient
ends up in a “contacts” inbox, the
“default” inbox really becomes more
of a “junk” folder than an inbox.
And none of us want to end up
there. Right?

Justin Premick is the Director of
Education Marketing at AWeber and
you can find more email marketing
tips from him at http://affsum.aweber.
com/blog.

The Inbox is Shrinking
One could argue that this Yahoo!
move is effectively creating multiple
inboxes - one with all email and one
only with email from contacts.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 3

By Chris Brogan

What Is the Truth,
Anyway?
An excerpt from “Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build
Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust”
Chris Brogan

The way people use the Web is
constantly changing. People have
become more wary of where the
information they receive comes from,
and with good reason. We read articles
about how the person beside us at the
bar ordering the Miller Genuine Draft is
actually a paid “buzz generator.” We read
product reviews on the Web, believing
that they are a reflection of what the
reviewers think of the product—only
to find out that products returning a
higher cut of the profits are always rated
higher than products that are perhaps
superior in quality. We know how lessthan-honest advertisers and marketers
work to influence us. We realize that
those few lazy reporters in our media
who just report on whatever a PR firm
tells them without follow-up offer poor
reporting. We are living in an age where
the financial collapse of 2008 and 2009
shook our trust in our entire financial
system, compromised the viability of
our retirement funds, and sent massive
waves of distrust through London, New
York, and beyond.
It is unclear in an age in which
technologies such as Google prevail over
almost all information whether either
of the two gentlemen discussed earlier
would have been able to pass as the
people they did for so long. Conway’s
elaborate Stanley Kubrick impersonation
was eventually discovered as a fraud and
exposed on television in a series called

4 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

The Lying Game; by that time, he had
already borrowed tens of thousands of
dollars from people who believed him
to be the real thing. As for Joe Pistone,
his true identity was never exposed (that
is to say, until the FBI revealed it). This
enabled him to eventually send more
than 100 members of the New York Mob
to prison, striking a serious blow to the
Mafia. How would he have done this
in the twenty-first century, with much
of our communication going through
digital channels? Obliterating an identity
online as well as in the real world is
extremely difficult at best.
It’s difficult to reach out and do business
with people using the Web. This is
especially true in an environment where
trust isn’t previously established and
where the prospective customer has
access to far more information about
your organization, products, and services
than ever before.

strong level of trust among his online
community. In the United Kingdom,
JP Rangaswami is managing director
of BT Design for BT Group. His blog,
Confused of Calcutta, is often about
cricket, music, food, and many things not
related to a major telecommunications
company; yet, because of his stories and
conversational writing tone, we trust
Rangaswami and have a positive opinion
about BT.
Those who are most familiar with
the digital space—we refer to them
as “digital natives”—have become
accustomed to a new level of
transparency. They operate under the
assumption that everything they do will
eventually be known online. Realizing
they are unable to hide anything, they
choose not to try. Instead, they leverage
the way the Web connects us and ties
our information together to help turn
transparency into an asset for doing
business.

How Humans Shape the Web

Although the general public’s level of
mistrust is at an all-time high, there
are individuals and companies who do
successfully use the Internet to establish
levels of trust in the communities
where they operate. In the technology
sector, a person such as Robert Scoble
(circa Microsoft days) stands out as
someone who, by the nature of how
he communicated about his formerly
faceless company, developed a

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing
Labs, a social media agency and education
company and blogs on ChrisBrogan.com

Reduce Fraud Risk Through
Your Affiliate Agreement
By David Naffziger

David Naffziger

The majority of affiliates create value for
their merchant partners, however most
affiliate programs have been subjected to
fraud at some point. Affiliate fraud can take
many forms; it can be outright transaction
fraud or other illegal activity, manufactured
leads, misled consumers or traffic from
prohibited sources.
The networks do a good job providing basic
legal protections against these activities,
but merchants should use their own affiliate
agreements to ensure maximum protection.
The supplemental affiliate agreement fulfills
multiple roles, but there are several aspects
of that agreement important to protecting
your program from fraud:
Identify Allowable Marketing Techniques

Affiliates use a variety of techniques to
market your program including email
campaigns, paid search, organic search,
desktop software, incentivized programs
and even offline advertisements or pitches.
Your agreement should consider each of
these techniques and describe in plain
English which techniques are allowed in
your program.
Provide generic statements that can be
applied to marketing techniques used
in the future. A common approach is to
prohibit marketing campaigns deemed to
be detrimental to the merchantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brand. If
an unsavory technique is used by an affiliate

in the future, this clause may provide
additional protection.
Handling Trademark Bidding

If you prohibit trademark bidding, require
your search affiliates to add your brand
terms to their list of negative keywords. The
search engines aggressively broad match
and some affiliates take advantage of this
to comply with your policy (not bidding
on brand terms), while getting their ads
shown for searches on your brand. Negative
keywords provide the cleanest method for
ensuring that affiliates do not advertise on
your prohibited terms.

Once youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve conclusively identified fraud,
give yourself the ability to deny or reverse
those payments. Keep in mind that these
terms should only be used if fraud is
legitimately suspected, not as a tool to
manage disagreements with affiliates.
Your affiliate agreement is an excellent tool
for managing your fraud risk; however it is
only one aspect of a comprehensive fraud
prevention program that includes affiliate
application review, regular communication
and abuse monitoring.
Make sure you consult legal counsel as you
craft or modify your affiliate agreement.

Delay or Deny Fraudulent Payments

Affiliate fraud is frequently perceptible in
the data provided by the affiliate networks.
Sharp changes in affiliate performance or
unusually high conversion rates can be early
indicators of a fraudulent affiliate. However,
this data is rarely enough to conclusively
determine fraud. Credit card fraud can take
weeks to surface. Other forms of abuse
such as trademark poaching or spyware
take time to collect the evidence necessary.

David Naffziger is CEO of BrandVerity, a firm
that detects affiliate violations of merchant
paid search policies.

Give yourself the right to delay payments
if you suspect fraud. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t allow pressure
to finalize your payments prevent you from
making a good decision about suspected
fraud. Delayed payments give you the
opportunity to fully research the suspicious
activity and collect the data needed to deny
or reverse payments.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 5

Lauren, turbowalkstation.com

Walking the Walk in Affiliate Marketing
By Shawn Collins

If you’ve spent any time at WickedFire.com, you’ve probably come across
“turbolapp”, one of the moderators and active members on the forum.
Outside of Wicked Fire, “turbolapp” is a Texas-based affiliate marketer
named Lauren who works while walking on a treadmill, which she has
dubbed the “ Turbostation.”
FeedFront’s Co-Editor-in-Chief, Shawn Collins, recently talked with Lauren
about her treadmill desk, why she works while walking on a treadmill, how
to make your own treadmill desk, and her fear of ending up on YouTube.

Shawn: How did you get started with exercising on the Treadmill

hangs off a wall mount with a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Desk?

Shawn: How long have you been posting your exercise
Lauren: I was 9 months pregnant lounging on the couch (my

information on turbowalkstation.com?

favorite place to be at that time) flipping through channels and I
came across a special on 20/20. They were interviewing Dr. Levine

Lauren: Actually, the stats posting all started with Twitter. With

from the Mayo Clinic about his in depth research of NEAT (Non-

the recent upgrade of the Turbostation (that’s what I call my walk

Exercise Activity Thermogenesis).

station) I was way pumped about it. I kept Tweeting about my
stats on my @Turbolapp Twitter account. My fellow Tweeters

His idea was that if we could subtly increase NEAT in our daily
lifestyles, then we would burn a lot more calories. He (literally)

Not wanting to alienate my followers, I decided it would be more

brought his lab to a corporate office setting and had the employees

appropriate to create a new Twitter account just for my Turbostats

walk on the treadmill all day at 1-2 mph.

and treadmill desk related stuff. So the @Turbostation Twitter
account was born and I just kinda went crazy on it with all the stats

If you think about it, that’s fairly slow. Here they were, on these

updates.

treadmill desks, talking on the phones, typing at the computer,
doing everything they have to do anyways for 8 hours, but they

Soon, I started finding other people on Twitter that had treadmill

were doing it on a treadmill and they were burning an extra 500-

desks (yeah, there are actually others out there) and we all keep

1000 calories a day.

each other motivated and challenged. It’s been very instrumental.

These people had the pounds just melting away! At this point in

Meanwhile, I thought, you know I’ve always wanted a blog but

the story, I just thought it was really cool. But then they interviewed

never had anything to say before (that I thought people should

a woman who worked out of her home office and had decided she

actually listen to, anyway. ha!) and I have friends and family that

could do the same thing with her treadmill.

aren’t on Twitter, so I created the blog at turbowalkstation.com.

She just laid a table leaf over her treadmill “arms” and put her laptop

It’s actually worked out well; combining the two (I have a plugin

on it. She had been doing it for a year and had lost something like

that feeds my Twitter messages to my blog, so yea! Instant content!)

70lbs just walking slowly on a treadmill all day while she worked.

and I get a lot of questions on Twitter like, “How do you make one
of those?”, “Why are you doing this?” and “What the hell is that?” to

By then I was looking down at my bloated belly, thinking about the

which I just point them to appropriate page in my blog.

50lbs I had gained, how my back was about to give (I’ve had back
issues since I was 12), and how I had this really nice treadmill in the

Shawn: Do you really get work done on there?

back room collecting dust, and thought, I could totally do this!

Lauren: I really do. Some people are mystified either because they
My husband and I went to Lowes that day and got a flat piece of

just can’t picture it (there are a couple of videos on my blog for you

wood to screw down to the treadmill arms and VOILA there was

skeptics out there) or they think ‘yeah, that’s nice but it wouldn’t

my first my treadmill desk! There’s even a picture of me on my blog

work for my situation’.

when I was preggo and huge, just struttin’ my stuff.
Basically, your only lifestyle requirements need to be: 1. Work from
Of course, since then, there have been a few upgrades. I took away

home 2. Work on a computer. That’s it. I don’t care what it is you do

the laptop, and opted instead for a PC with a 32 inch monitor that

on your computer all day, if you meet those two requirements, you

8 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

Walking the Walk in Affiliate Marketing
can do this.

Lauren: No way. If anything it feels great to be challenging myself
and motivating others. When I make my progress public I feel like I

I’ve had people say, ‘yeah, but I’m a programmer and it would be

have a responsibility to myself and others to keep at it.

too hard to code’. Sorry, doesn’t fly. I have a couple of friends on
Twitter that are programmers and they code at 1 mph, baby. That’s

Shawn: How can people create their own Treadmill Desk?

the key.

Lauren: My hubby, Steve, was nice enough to do a video tutorial
You increase and decrease your mph depending on your work load.

on my blog to help people make a treadmill desk with their own

Even at 1 mph you’re still burning an extra 100 calories an hour and

treadmill. It’s all going to depend on your treadmill, but as long as

at 8 hours a day...well if you’re a programmer, I’m sure you can do

it has some sort of “arms” to lay the desk on, you’re good to go.

the math. And remember there’s always the incline!
For those of you that don’t have a treadmill you can get them off of

Shawn: I read on your blog that you’ve had back problems. So, is

Craigslist for cheap. I know a guy that spent 75 dollars on the whole

the treadmill desk more comfortable for you to work than sitting at

thing, including the treadmill, the desk attachment, and screws.

a desk?

Money shouldn’t be an obstacle.

Lauren: Totally. Sitting is about the worst thing out there you

For those that have the money to burn and don’t want to DIY, there

can do to your spine. Standing is better, but it starts to hurt after a

are already-made treadmill desks out there for a pretty penny (just

while. Walking is one of the best things you can do for your back.

be sure to check the mph limit, some don’t go above 2.0 mph. I, for

It slowly stretches and strengthens the muscles that support your

one, enjoy my options).

spine.

Shawn: Any advice for affiliate marketers that want to get in
Truth be told, this is the real reason I’m doing it. For anyone who’s

shape?

ever been in chronic pain, it can be so debilitating and depressing.
I was tired of being 30 years old and feeling like I was 80. Since I’ve

Lauren: Find what works for you and incorporate it into your

started walking everyday on the treadmill my pain is 99% better. I

lifestyle. Keep the NEAT mentality in mind while you work. It

haven’t felt this good since I was a kid.

doesn’t have to be a treadmill.

Shawn: What’s your power song (song that gets you pumped

Some people use stationary bikes, others use a giant exercise ball

when exercising)?

to sit on while they work at their desk (apparently the balancing on
the ball encompasses the NEAT and it’s great for the back) It doesn’t

Lauren: I don’t listen to music. I think most people listen to music

matter what you do, just keep moving.

when they exercise because it’s a nice distraction from the tedious
torture they’re putting their mind and body through. I don’t need

Shawn: Have you ever gotten really into something on your

a distraction.

screen and then flung off the back of the treadmill?

That’s the beauty of this whole thing. I’ve always been the type to

Lauren: LOL, No thank goodness. When I first started I was so

get absorbed in my work. It’s the same thing when I moved my

scared I was going to be one of those people on YouTube that go

work to my treadmill. I get lost in my work and next thing I know,

flying off their treadmills. I do make sure to attach that safety cord

I look down and I’ve been on for 100 minutes and burned 500

to my waistband every time, just in case.

calories.

Shawn: Any regrets about posting your progress online?

Shawn is a Co-founder of Affiliate Summit and Co-Editor-in-Chief of
FeedFront Magazine.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 9

Affiliate Marketing Industry Ripe
for Quality Effort By Will Martin-Gill
During the past two decades, affiliate
marketing has quietly grown into a
multibillion dollar industry, with projected
13 percent year-over-year increases through
2012[1]; making it one of online advertising’s
fastest growing segments.
As the industry matures and the stakes
get higher, issues of quality weigh heavily
on affiliates and merchants alike. What
kinds of traffic are affiliates sending to their
advertisers? Are top affiliates compensated
fairly? What happens when honest affiliates
must compete with those who cheat the
system? The affiliate community should be
asking these questions and exploring quality
measures that can elevate the industry, lifting
reputations and profits with them.
Consider the quality implications of modern
pay structures. Generally, the more sales
and leads an affiliate sends, the more likely
the merchant will put them in special bonus
tiers and pay more. In this scenario, smaller
affiliates who may send more valuable traffic
are undercompensated, while those who
send large volumes of lower-quality traffic
– some who also commit fraud – are unduly
rewarded.
When eBay brought its affiliate program
in-house last year and analyzed performance
data, the company re-examined those
traditional notions of affiliate marketing.
Traffic quality demanded attention.
For example, the data suggested that many
small affiliates, especially those with relevant
content sites, actually do bring more engaged
customers and better converting traffic.
Small affiliates with fewer than 100 clicks per

10 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

tools, including better options to target by
customer and geography, and to optimize
landing pages.
2. Affiliates – Build high quality sites with valueadded content, integrating links and ads in userfriendly ways. (For example, integrate merchant
links within relevant content, not around it). Use
more targeted creatives and tools to engage
users in a merchant’s product and brand. Take
advantage of landing page and geo-targeting
functionality when available.
Will Martin-Gill

day to eBay bring 44 percent more revenue
per click than the program average.
Sending buyer traffic from high-quality
websites with a positive marketing
experience sets the stage for a quality
experience on a merchant’s site. If all
stakeholders unite to promote quality, profits
increase and perceptions of the channel
improve. The following steps can help make
that happen:
1. Advertisers - Calculate and compensate
for the value delivered by affiliates. Reward
and encourage by paying appropriately
for engaging users through a positive
experience. Some leading affiliate and ad
networks already do this. AdSense adjusts
cost-per-click payouts based on a series of
quality-based metrics. Amazon encourages
quality in a way by compensating more for
deep linking and some of its tools, which
it presumably has tied to better quality
publishers and overall results. It’s also
important to keep investing in affiliate

The affiliate marketing industry stands to gain
much from increased debate and studies about
quality, and ways advertisers and affiliates can
work together to improve metrics. The more
stakeholders can demonstrate the quality
and impact of affiliate marketing, the larger
the investments merchants can make in
commissions, tools and people that can drive
the industry and its best affiliates forward.

Will Martin-Gill is Director, Internet Marketing for
eBay, leading business development for eBay’s
affiliates channel.

Reward Sites: Asset or Liability? By Tricia Meyer

Tricia Meyer

Every merchant, at one point or another,
has heard a horror story about cash back/
reward sites and why they shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work
with them, however, when done properly
(avoiding known issues and ensuring that
certain checks are in place), reward sites
can actually help grow your program.
Here are five ways:
1) Reward sites have strong membership

bases that can be leveraged. Whether you
are a well-known or lesser-known brand,
the reward site can use its relationship
with its members to give your brand both
exposure and credibility.

purchase, they often consider it the same
as a discount, which can lead to higher
purchase amounts. In many cases, it may
even lead to a purchase where there may
not been one.

2) Most reward sites keep track of the
purchase histories of their members in
some way. Using their databases, they can
help you target particular demographics
and types of purchasers for your products.
They know who buys shoes, kids clothes,
electronics, etc.

5)
A good reward site will be able to
quickly track down and minimize fraud.
By monitoring accounts and watching
spending patterns, reward sites can often
alert you to fraudulent purchases before
they are even shipped. This can include
stolen credit card numbers and false
information.

3) Because reward site members watch
their accounts closely for credits, the sites
can help you pinpoint tracking issues at the
network level or even on your site. This can
help you isolate particular landing pages
or links that are not working before the
problem becomes widespread.
4) Reward sites give people an extra
incentive to make bigger purchases than
they might have made otherwise. When
a member is getting cash back on a

The degree of benefit will, of course,
depend upon the particular reward site.
Talk to the cash back sites with which you
are interested in working and ask them how
they can help you with some or all of the
above.

Tricia Meyer is the owner of the cash back
shopping site SunshineRewards.com.

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Privacy is Good Policy
By David Klein
David Klein

Clients frequently inquire, skeptically, as to
the necessity of posting privacy policies on
their websites. While some clients might
prefer to skip that step (and expense), my
advice is always the same: If you operate a
website that collects Personally Identifiable
Information (“PII”) from end-users (name,
e-mail address, phone number, etc.), it is
crucial that you compose an easy-to-read
privacy policy that you make available to
visitors on your home page.
Letting website visitors know, via your privacy
policy, what PII you collect, how you intend to
use it; to whom you disclose the information
to; and the security measures taken to
protect that PII, is not only good policy from
a customer-relations perspective, it is also
required by state and federal law.
In addition to making sure that your online
data collection activities are compliant with
state and federal law, a well-written privacy
policy can form a key feature of your online
business strategy. If proper disclosures are
included in your privacy policy and above
the “Submit” button on your website, you can
monetize user data through e-mail marketing,
telemarketing and, where permitted by law,
mobile/text message marketing, to end-users.
On the other hand, if you do not properly
inform end-users of your intention to use
their data for marketing purposes, any
attempt to do so would almost certainly
violate applicable law.

12 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

In crafting your privacy policy, you must
provide specific disclosures for each intended
use of the data, and you cannot deviate from
the range of options granted to you in your
privacy policy.
If you want to change your privacy policy
to allow for greater uses of the PII in your
database, you must contact the users that
are already in your database and receive
additional consent from them. For that
reason, it usually makes sense to grant your
business the greatest range of potential uses
of the data when you first draft your privacy
policy.
Even where you state up-front in your privacy
policy that you can use your end-users’ PII in
various ways, that does not always grant you
the right to such uses. For example, more
restrictive laws apply to the use of sensitive
information such as Social Security Number,
health-related information and financial data.
While properly collected end-user data
may provide your business with a valuable
revenue stream, collecting data also imposes
a responsibility on your employees to
safeguard such data. Various state and federal
statutes require that you distribute to your
employees a written manual on data security
procedures, and that you notify end-users in
case of any breach of security with respect to
their data.
With all the rules and regulations governing
the collection and use of PII – and given the

potential financial benefits derived from a
database of consumer information – it makes
good business and legal sense to craft a
privacy policy that is well-suited to the needs
of your business, and that provides your
website visitors with the information they
require to make an informed decision.
This is only a brief overview of some of the
legal issues associated with privacy policies.
Remember to retain a licensed attorney to
draft your privacy policy.

David O. Klein is a partner with the firm of Klein
Zelman Rothermel LLP in New York, NY, where
he practices Internet Marketing Law. He can be
reached at (212) 935-6020 or via e-mail at dklein@
legal.org.

5

By Matt McWilliams

The Five Most Common

Today it seems everyone has a website.
You’re not everyone though; your site is your
business. Your website should be professional
and encourage your visitors to buy.

them. Place them throughout your site and
create a prominent “Testimonials Page.” If you
don’t have any testimonials, ask your affiliate
manager if you can use the merchant’s.

Shoppers today are cynical and have more
choices than ever.

5. FAQ Page
Most people will never view this page, but the
ones who do want answers; and they want
them fast! Anytime someone asks something,
add it to the FAQ. Ask your friends to look
at your site and think of FAQs. It will lead to
more sales, guaranteed.

I’ve found that many affiliates are missing or
misusing these five critical pieces on their
websites. Are you?
1. Informational Content
Conventional wisdom tells us to get to the
point and eliminate clutter on our site, but
you need informational content to help
convert the skeptics and less knowledgeable
visitors.
Informational content serves two purposes.
First, it’s a great service that customers won’t
forget, converting confused customers into
ready-to-buy machines. Second, a good
article is chock-full of keyword-rich content
that can vault you to the top of search
engines and drive substantial traffic from links
from other sites.

Matt McWilliams

3. Privacy Policy
Is my information protected? What data are
you collecting? Will I get spammed?
These are all questions that visitors ask
themselves. Not having a clearly written
privacy policy that answers important
questions can cost you their business. In their
eyes, you’re hiding something and must be a
scam.

2. “Contact Us” Page
Often, the hardest obstacle to overcome is
consumer trust. These people are about to
give some serious information. You must do
everything possible to earn their trust.

A good privacy policy lets customers know
about things like cookies, your anti-spam
policy, form encryption, etc. Every page on
your website should like to your Privacy Policy
page.

In Geno Prussakov’s book, “Online Shopping
Through Consumers’ Eyes,” 83% of web users
say a physical address gives them more
confidence than a P.O. Box. Almost all say that
no address is a major deterrent. Geno also
notes that by a 4-to-1 margin, users prefer an
actual email to a “contact form.”

4. Customer Testimonials
You may not get emails often thanking you
for your service, but when you do get a thank
you, do you make use of it?

Give them every way possible to contact you,
it clearly pays off.

Any one of these missing components can
cost you conversions and ultimately money.
Check your site and make sure that you have
all of these important pieces. If you have
them, make sure they are thorough and upto-date.

Matt McWilliams is the award-winning Affiliate
Manager for the Learn and Master Learning
Program at http://www.learnandmaster.com.

The first thing you should do is to thank your
customers and show genuine happiness that
you helped them. Then ask permission to
use their testimonial. About 50% of people
will let you. Testimonials are priceless trust
builders, so make sure you take advantage of

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 13

That Support Your Business By Nicky Senyard
from the dashboard so that users can quickly get a sense of their
KPIs at a glance upon login. Merchants and affiliates should also
be able to adapt reports to their business needs through an
Application Programming Interface (“API”) or by exporting them
in Excel, CSV, TXT, or XML formats.
As for actual affiliate and merchant KPIs, reliable affiliate software
should provide analytics on creatives (impressions), landing
pages (click-through-rates), and conversions (transactions).
This depth of intelligence provides insight into the full cycle of
acquisition, allowing you to analyze where your strengths are in
the acquisition process.
Hyper-Targeting
In addition to general marketing tools such as banner and flash
ad management tools, affiliates need to be able to hyper-target
their promotions in order to maximize promotions. There are two
sides to affiliate hyper-targeting: (1) sending referrals to the most
appropriate landing page, and (2) having customizable URLs so
that affiliates can track and optimize their conversions.

Nicky Senyard

Affiliate marketing is a symbiotic relationship between advertisers
and publishers, and the affiliate software that brokers that
relationship should support the needs of both parties.
The features of an affiliate platform should offer sophisticated
tools for managing the merchant/affiliate relationship. Therefore,
the software you choose to work with should facilitate this
process with relevant reporting and proactive targeting tools.
Relevant Affiliate Reporting
Tracking reports are at the heart of success for both affiliates
and the program they promote. Thus, a vital feature of reliable
affiliate software is reporting that’s timely, accurate, accessible,
and reports on all the Key Performance Indicators (“KPIs”) of a
campaign.
Current (e.g. daily) and accurate reporting is important because
it allows both merchants and affiliates to monitor their campaign
performance, and to make adjustments in a timely manner.
A graphical overview of these reports should also be accessible

14 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

Affiliates understand their traffic best; being able to choose what
landing page to send their referrals to is essential to increasing
conversions. Affiliate software that features deep linking tools
helps affiliates achieve better results by allowing them to choose
the landing URL/pages of their affiliate links. This enables the
ability to adjust their call-to-actions so that they resonate with
their customer-base.
As affiliates can generate and refer traffic from a variety of sources
(SEO, PPC, Twitter, etc.), it’s also important that they have access
to analytics that show how well each campaign converts into a
referral.
Affiliate software that features custom affiliate tracking allows for
the creation of tracking URLs with additional variables, such as
keywords or campaign IDs. With these custom URLs, affiliates can
then monitor how well each campaign is converting and optimize
their efforts accordingly.
Software & Business Relationships
By providing merchant and affiliates with the reporting and
marketing support they need to succeed, affiliate software can
broker a prosperous business relationship.

Nicky Senyard is the founder and CEO of ShareResults.com, a
relationship-focused affiliate network and software provider.

How Banner
Advertising Can
Boost Affiliate Sales
By Amanda Schwarz

Amanda Schwarz

Banner advertising may not be your first thought
when building your online marketing strategy.
Maybe you feel that it is only effective for large
companies, or that that search engines drive
more measurable, impactful results. Perhaps
the process of setting up banner ad campaigns
seems a bit intimidating.

Reinforce your search campaign with
retargeting
Retargeting enables you to show banner ads
promoting your site to people who have already
visited your site and left. The goal is to convince
them to return to your site to complete a
transaction.

It turns out that banner advertising, especially
on third-party networks, is both an easy and
accessible way for you to promote your site or
business. Here are a few goals that a banner
advertising campaign can help you achieve:

If you are currently running a search campaign,
implementing a retargeting campaign can
visually reinforce a visitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s previous brand
experience on your site, or remind them why
they visited in the first place. Click-through rates
on retargeting campaigns are very high, as the
audience is already familiar with your site.

Pinpoint and attract the right leads
Many banner advertising networks offer a
host of advanced targeting options, including
geographical, demographic and site content.
They can generate leads from specific locations,
target to people who have particular online
habits, or show banners on sites whose content
appeals to your target audience. These people
may not be looking for your business on search
engines, but when they see your banner ad on a
trusted site, they may take a second look.
Optimize your advertising dollar
Banner advertising has never been more
affordable, especially on third-party networks
that are able to deliver clicks across a wide range
of sites. Look for a network that allows you to pay
only per click, and to set your own price. Coupled
with the ability to target customers effectively,
each click can be both inexpensive and likely to
convert.

16 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

Banner advertising is more targeted, effective
and affordable than ever before. This is a great
time for affiliate marketers to take advantage of
banner advertising â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to find and convert new
leads, stretch their advertising budgets, and
reinforce their other marketing efforts.

Amanda Schwarz is a Product Manager for BidPlace
SB, a banner advertising solution offered by
Platform-A/Advertising.com.

OUT OF COMMISSION

By Lisa Picarille

Affiliate marketers know the importance
of commissions, but few realize that
what they are doing when they sit down
at the computer, could put them out of
commission.
Many online marketers work from home.
It’s one of the big perks often associated
with self-employment and the affiliate
lifestyle. While the freedom of working
from home means there is no boss looking
over your shoulder, it also means there
is no one there to regulate and oversee
basic issues like creating an ergonomic
workspace.
Most people find out the hard way that
where you sit and what you sit on is a big
deal.
This is especially relevant for the majority
of affiliates, who often spend upwards of
12 hours per day sitting in front of their
computers in environments that are far
from ergonomic.
As a result, poor posture, eye strain, sore
wrists and aching backs are common,
as well as more serious conditions like
repetitive stress injury, carpal tunnel
syndrome and debilitating back problems.
The bulk of people don’t address these
issues until they are very serious, but there
are ways to prevent them from happening
at all.
Here are some basic rules for a healthier
workspace.
Keyboard

• Use an adjustable keyboard/mouse
tray
• Make sure your keyboard allows you
to keep an open 90 degree angle
with your arms so they’re tilted
downward and close at your sides

• Keep your wrists in a straight
position; not bent up or down.
Monitor

• Center your monitor

Lisa Picarille

• Sit only an arm’s length away
wheels for easier movement

• Position the top of your screen level
with your eyes
• Beware of glare
• Consider adjusting font size
• Take a 20 second break every 20
minutes and look at least 20 feet
away
Mouse

• Keep your mouse close to your
keyboard
• Make sure you are using the right
size pointing device
• Use your elbow not your wrist to
more the mouse
• Don’t click too hard
• Use keyboard shortcuts when you
can

Lighting

• Use glare free lighting
• Add a task light on your desk
Phone

• Do not cradle the phone between
neck and ear
• Consider getting a headset or using
a speakerphone
Desk

• Use a desk that is large enough to
accommodate papers, reference
manuals, and other workstation
tools, but arranged properly to
access items easily

• Don’t hover over the mouse with
your hand when you are not using
the mouse

• Make sure the desk is at a height
that allows enough space for your
knees and thighs to comfortably fit
under the desk

• Consider using your other hand to
operate the mouse

• Be sure you can put your monitor at
least an arm’s length away

Chair

• Look for a chair that is adjustable
• Keep your feet flat on the floor
• Make sure there is support for your
lower back

Lisa Picarille is a consultant specializing in
online marketing, branding and social media,
and she blogs at www.lisapicarille.com

• Be sure you have adjustable
armrests so your elbows will be kept
at your sides
• Use a chair that swivels and has

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 17

By Jami Gibbs

Charged Affiliate
Marketing
Jami Gibbs

As an affiliate marketer, you will always be learning something
new, be it designing landing pages, finding new keywords, or
finessing your copywriting skills. However, there is one thing
that you will learn faster than anything else – your plate will
always be full. But, have you considered the emotional pitfalls
of your affiliate marketing PPC campaign? More importantly,
have you learned how to control those emotions to maximize
your profit?
The first emotion many of us experience is the euphoric high.
It’s the excitement we feel when we get our first click, sale, or
profitable day. Naturally it’s a feeling we want to maintain on a
day-to-day basis. It’s a positive feeling, right?
But in affiliate marketing, it can lead to obsessive stats checking
and rash judgments. Pat yourself on the back for having a
profitable campaign but be sure to call upon your inner Spock
before jumping the gun on decisions. You must also prepare
yourself for the anxiety of spending money without seeing an
immediate ROI. These are the days that we question our place
in affiliate marketing altogether. We say to ourselves, “I’m just
a noob!”, “I’m way over my head!”, or, “I’m just wasting my time
and money!” Every affiliate marketer must accept that we’re
simply playing a game of risk and chance.
How do we control our emotions to make sound business and
life decisions?
You must remember that every affiliate marketer rides the
same emotional roller coaster. Sometimes remembering that
you’re not alone can be enough to help you focus. Every online
marketer has gone through the anxiety of a negative ROI day
and every affiliate must learn to adapt to those days. Take
comfort in knowing that you aren’t alone.
Second, find a physical trigger to help snap your brain back to
reality. For example, to stop myself from obsessively checking
stats I use Google Lab’s “ Take a Break”, which when activated,
logs you out of your Gmail account for a mandatory 15 minutes.
While they haven’t yet made an application that logs me
out of my PPC stats account for 15 minutes (I’m considering

18 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

forwarding that idea to Google support), it’s still a nice idea to
carry over. I then mentally assign that action to all applications
on my desktop. This forces me to stand, walk away from my
desk, take a breather, and center my emotions to help me take
the next logical step in my marketing campaign.

Jami Gibbs (Twitter @JamiGibbs), a website publisher and budding
affiliate marketer, is originally from Chicago and currently resides
in Tel Aviv, Israel.

7

7 Essentials When Making Affiliate
Program Changes By Jamie Birch
commission rate, and/or other aspects of your program, here are
some guidelines and things to consider:
• Accurate data: When making changes to commission rates,
for example, be sure to know the lifetime value of affiliate
customers and look at the profitability of each partner
before making a decision. Accurate data will guide you in
your decisions.
• Proven assumptions: Are your theories supported by
data or simply the thoughts of someone outside of the
marketing department? Good analysis will often stop bad
decisions from being made.
• Testing: Test out your assumptions in your program.
• Top affiliate involvement: Affiliates are your partners. You
shouldn’t make any big changes without consulting them
first. It may serve only as a forewarning in the end, but
bringing them into the process will help them understand
any decisions you decide to make. Additionally, many
affiliates have been in business longer than the affiliate
managers themselves, they may have some ideas that you
may not have thought of.
Sometimes there is simply no way to avoid making changes to
your program. Following these guidelines can help lessen the
pain:
• Involve your affiliates and be able to explain the issues and
reasons for your decision
Jamie Birch

Times are tough. There is no escaping the fact that our industry
is not immune to the high unemployment rates and falling
consumer spending. It is affecting all of us and merchants may
need to adjust their programs due to the changing landscape;
sometimes even just to keep them open to affiliates.
As Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “The only constant is
change”. But you shouldn’t make changes without thoughtful,
in-depth consideration and accurate information.
Nothing will upset your partners more and reduce the overall
performance of a program than affiliates finding an email in their
inbox that tells of a dramatic change taking place immediately.

• Have data to back up your position
• Be prepared to offer concessions to ease the impact on your
partners
• Provide adequate lead time (60-90 days)
• Send email notices before changes are made and follow up
with individual calls to your top-producing affiliates
Accurate data, partner consultation, and adequate lead time will
help you and your program maintain trust and the performance
that we all need during these tough times.

Jamie Birch is the owner of the affiliate management agency
JEBCommerce.com, MyAffiliateCoach.net, and NewsForAffiliates.com.

If you find yourself under pressure to change the cookie days
(also known as commission duration or return days), overall

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 19

Inside Information on
Affiliate Classifying
By Matt Enders

Matt Enders

When my company takes over the
management of an existing affiliate
program or launches a new one, we do so
using the Structured Diversity Method I
have developed. Affiliates are categorized
into three distinct classifications: Aggregate
Volume, High Potential, and Premium
Partners.
Each affiliate within any given classification
is equally significant and must be treated
with a high level of importance. This
ensures that your affiliate partners are
able to consistently improve their sales
volume and helps your program become
a significant portion of your overall online
revenue.
Aggregate Volume affiliates comprise the
foundation of your program. These affiliates
are what most would consider rookies to
affiliate marketing. They will likely have
many questions and may need to be
taught the basics of generating traffic and
converting visitors. These affiliates typically
generate a few orders each, per month.
Your program should be designed so that
you have hundreds of converting affiliates
at the foundation level who occasionally
generate individual sales, but who, as the
Aggregate Volume group, contribute a

significant amount of monthly revenue.
High Potential affiliates are important
both as a group and individually. This
group does not typically make their living
entirely from affiliate marketing, but they
are generating consistent sales each month.
Their commission earnings play a role in
both their business and personal budgeting.
High Potential affiliates are likely to increase
their sales rapidly if they are given the right
tools.
Premium Partner affiliates are your top
performers. They may or may not be
considered an industry Super Affiliate, but
regardless are generating a significant
amount of your monthly sales. These
affiliates should be viewed as a method
of â&#x20AC;&#x153;sharpening the tipâ&#x20AC;? of your affiliate
program. They have the ability to drive
significant amounts of revenue, often in a
very short period of time. More importantly,
their high performance level is often
sustainable over time.
You can build a significant revenue
generating program through Aggregate
Volume and High Potential affiliates alone,
but overall growth will be inconsistent
and slow. Likewise, a program built
with Premium Partners alone may not

20 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

be sustainable over time as any number
of factors beyond your control could
temporarily or permanently affect their sales
volume. The loss of even a single Premium
Partner in a program consisting only of this
group will result in a significant decrease in
overall revenue.
In utilizing the Structured Diversity Method
for your affiliate program design, you will
be able to reach profitability from the sales
generated by Aggregate Volume and High
Potential affiliates alone.
However, you must attract and recruit
affiliates of all three classifications in order
to realize the sharp growth curves you
are looking for. You must manage your
program under the assumption that each
partner in each classification wants to earn
more with your program and is actively
working on improving their business. If you
provide the tools and assistance needed,
you will find a steady flow of affiliates
advancing their performance level and
generating more sales in your program.

Matt Enders is the CEO and Founder of
mgecom, inc., a leading Outsourced Affiliate
Program Management firm.

Deborah

Carney

The Direct to Merchant
PPC Minefield
By Deborah Carney
Direct to merchant (DTM), pay per click (PPC)
advertising has been increasingly restricted lately,
with major merchants like Amazon and EBay
stating they will no longer allow affiliates to use
the merchant site as their landing pages in PPC
campaigns.
What this means to affiliates is that they will now be
tasked with building their own websites and landing
pages that convert. Even though many affiliates
made a lot of money using DTM PPC, the technique
is flawed and smart affiliates should have recognized
that long ago.
First, affiliates have been paying for traffic and
sending it directly to the merchant. Unfortunately,
when the merchant pulls the plug, as many are now
doing, those affiliates will not have any residual traffic
to a website of their own.
With perfected keywords, ads and their own
websites, affiliates would have been able to continue
without issue and have a site with some authority
and customer trust.
Second, affiliates with their own sites could have
been building a mailing list to use to contact
people about similar or better products. Not a
spam list, but a real list built from people that

were interested in the product being promoted
and possibly other similar products that can be
featured on the same site.
Third, affiliates that perform well utilizing pay per
click ads in the search engines have unique skills that
many other marketers don’t have. Leveraging those
skills to build traffic to their own websites provides
them with an opportunity to increase their own
authority and credibility with shoppers. Building
their email list should take them to new levels that
they weren’t aware they could achieve.
If you’re not great at building websites and landing
pages, I recommend partnering with someone who
is, or utilizing sites such as Elance.com to outsource
the portions you can’t do yourself. In the everchanging affiliate and online marketing landscape,
the more you are able to utilize your skills and adapt
to new requirements, the more successful you will be.

Deborah Carney (TeamLoxly.com) is an Affiliate
Manager and Consultant that also hosts a podcast
on Geekcast.fm to teach affiliates the ABCs of getting
started (AffiliateABCs).

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 21

Affiliate
FATBLOGGING
By Shawn Collins

Affiliate marketing is all about people and relationships. Some critics say
that is a problem when trying to scale.
But many affiliate marketers are crunching numbers on a different kind
of scale these days. They’re getting into affiliate fatblogging, where they
chronicle efforts about healthier living and weight loss on their blogs.
Here are some affiliate marketers that are trying to achieve a net loss.

Ayako Bingham
Where can people follow your progress?
www.branding100.com
What’s your power song (song that gets you pumped
when exercising)?
Don’t Cha / The Pussycat Dolls
Any regrets about posting your progress online?
I love taking pictures, but I don’t like being in them. But, this way,
I am pushed to accomplish my weight loss efforts
Any advice for affiliate marketers that want to get in shape?
Find something that works for you. I am not a treadmill type and
it took me a while to find something I actually enjoy doing.

Tyler Cruz
Where can people follow your progress?
www.tylercruz.com In particular, my weight loss challenge vs.
Jonathan Volk started at the post www.tylercruz.com/bloggingweight-loss-challenge-cruz-vs-volk

What’s your power song (song that gets you pumped
when exercising)?
I’m currently listening to the best singles of No Doubt which have
some nice fast paced songs. Before that, I was listening to the
best singles of Michael Jackson such as Beat It and Billie Jean.
Great running music.
Any regrets about posting your progress online?
Absolutely not. It’s all about public accountability and pressure.
Promising to reach a goal to yourself is one thing, but promising it
to the world is something completely different.
Any advice for affiliate marketers that want to get in shape?
Try announcing your weight loss or fitness goal publicly. It’s a lot
harder to come up with excuses when everyone is watching you.

Scott Jangro
Where can people follow your progress?
There’s no easy way to do this. For a while I was using the Nike+
website but the battery died on the sensor. I go through phases

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 23

of talking about my progress in blog posts or podcasts to keep
myself motivated. I’ve also got a page on my blog: www.jangro.
com/feeds-n-fat/
What’s your power song (song that gets you pumped when
exercising)?
Eminem “Lose Yourself”
Any regrets about posting your progress online?
No, I’m pretty open about stuff that I do. I like the pressure of
publicly declaring my goals. When I do that on my blog, I find
thatmy readers are both supportive of me and even inspired to
get in shape themselves. That’s a nice feeling.
Any advice for affiliate marketers that want to get in shape?
Set goals for both work and exercise. For example, I might
commit to a number of miles per week. To get yourself away from
your work, schedule time to work out. I use exercise as both a
break and a reward for getting stuff done. I also find that I can

get some fresh thinking done while on an hour run without any
distractions.

Tim Jones
Where can people follow your progress?
www.therealtimjones.com
What’s your power song (song that gets you pumped when
exercising)?
Fuel by Metallica
Any regrets about posting your progress online?
Not necessarily a regret, but I’ve found that now I’m accountable
to a whole group of people that want to know my progress.
Keeps you more motivated and keeps you from eating that
double cheeseburger, but can also be intimidating. Could have
quietly worked on my fitness and weight loss -- like I said, not a
regret, per se, but a little unexpected.
Any advice for affiliate marketers that want to get in shape?
A few things -- 1) Just like in business, you have to set yourself
up for success. Preparation is half the battle. Get the temptation
out of your house. Clean out all the garbage food before you
even attempt to eat better. 2) Get out from behind the computer!
Even if you just walk around the block, you have to get some
movement in, every day. (I have a lot of difficulty with this one).
3) We dine out a lot, as do many affiliate marketers (according to
my own, completely un-scientific polling data), so you often have
to work a little harder to find healthy alternatives when you’re out.
They’re on every menu, but sometimes you have to get creative
and eat a few side items or a couple healthy appetizers to avoid
the nasty stuff.

Israel Lagares
Where can people follow your progress?
www.FatManUnleashed.com or www.twitter.com/israellagares
What’s your power song (song that gets you pumped when
exercising)?
Any song by Eminem gets me going. It’s like I transfer all of his
hate into my workouts.
Any regrets about posting your progress online?
I have no regrets at all about putting myself online. It has helped
me tremendously. I’ve been able to identify negative patterns in
my diet and exercise, plus have been held accountable.

Scott Jangro’s Treadmill Desk

Shawn takes a day off from Affiliate Fatblogging.

Any advice for affiliate marketers that want to get in shape?
If you are trying to get in shape start off slow. Cut the little things
out and replace them with positive choices. Instead of soda,
drink diet soda. Then instead of diet soda switch to water. Get
in small workouts. Hop on the floor and do some pushups then
go for a walk in the park. Do that for a month and then step your
game up. You can also try my Blogger Proof Workout. It’s made
for those folks that live behind the monitor. Check it out at www.
fatmanunleashed.com/bloggerproofworkout.pdf

James Seligman
Where can people follow your progress?
www.jamesseligman.net
What’s your power song (song that gets you pumped when
exercising)?
Indestructible - Disturbed
Any regrets about posting your progress online?
No regrets, with other affiliates also getting in shape, it’s like you
have your own little support system.
Any advice for affiliate marketers that want to get in shape?
Just take a quick 10-minute walk every day before logging on
your computer. One of my biggest issues was sitting in front
of the computer all day and eating snacks (junk food), so don’t
snack!

Jonathan Volk
Where can people follow your progress?
My affiliate marketing blog, www.jonathanvolk.com every
Wednesday.
What’s your power song (song that gets you pumped when
exercising)?
Skillet, Comatose. ;)
Any regrets about posting your progress online?
None! It’s been a great motivation for me. When I gain or lose
weight and I post it online; it’s a huge accountability tool for me.
Any advice for affiliate marketers that want to get in shape?
Even though much of affiliate marketing is done solo, do not
apply this to your weight loss regimen. I had been trying to
become healthier and get in shape for a while and it was not until
I had a friend to work out with and push me that I was able to
really have any progress.

Shawn is a Co-founder of Affiliate Summit and Co-Editor-in-Chief of
FeedFront Magazine.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 25

Why We Should All
Believe in Trade Shows
By Michael Sprouse
Michael Sprouse

I have to admit that when I entered this sector of online
advertising as a profession, I totally underestimated the value of
face-to-face meetings and relationships. I, like many, believed
at the time that since a high percentage of daily business was
done via IM, email and the telephone, that trade shows and
other “physical” events were somehow less important.
Was I ever wrong. In fact, key trade shows – including and most
notably Affiliate Summit – have become indispensable parts
of our company’s marketing budget and resource allocation
each year. So why, in this day of economic cuts, bailouts and a
recession, are these seemingly “non-ROI” spending activities still
thriving?
The first answer is because they are anything but “non-ROI” and
have everything to do with making money. I’ve been in several
different industries in my career, and I can tell you that at shows
like Affiliate Summit, business actually gets done on the spot.
This is truly a unique characteristic as trade events go. In so
many other industries, you hear about the long boring days at
the booth, or the dull/fluffy presentations by out-of-touch “suits”
who don’t understand the workings of the business. (Some
people consider me a “suit”, so I can say that.) How lucky we are
to have shows like these that are busy, well-attended, and bring
together successful people and companies in the spirit of doing
actual business?
The second answer is those all-important relationships. No
matter how technologically advanced we as an industry get,
there will never be a replacement for affiliates and affiliate
managers meeting in person.
There is something less “tangible” or trustworthy about never
having put a face to a name, email, or IM. Looking people in the

eye is important. While you can’t measure this aspect of shows
concretely, look at the volume of things that happen at the
show, and during the evening events. People clearly value the
social aspect of trade shows.
The third answer relates mainly to the networks and merchants
reading this: “Branding”; a word that connotes something
not often pondered. But, consider a few of the major trends
happening right now; more marketing dollars flowing online;
more dollars flowing specifically to performance-based
marketing from cash-strapped advertisers during this recession;
and a never-ending expansion of new categories and verticals.
All of this means more new people, affiliates and advertisers
attending trade shows that are most likely unfamiliar with your
company. No matter how “big” you think your company or
network is, a majority of people that are entering this sector of
online advertising probably haven’t heard of you. Being able to
showcase yourself to these folks, and build new relationships
with them, is huge.
Trade shows aren’t cheap. For networks and affiliates alike, it’s
an investment in time, money and people. But from where I sit,
I wouldn’t “trade” (sorry) the benefits listed above for anything
else in our company’s budget.

Michael Sprouse is the Chief Marketing Officer for Epic Advertising,
and is based at the company’s headquarters in New York, NY.

Flogging –

Will Your Blog
Be Outed?
Jason Dodd

Using your blog to promote your
affiliate campaigns can be like walking a
tightrope. In order to do it correctly, you
must learn how to monetize your blog
without becoming a biased “flog” (fake
blog); losing the trust of your readers and
search engines alike.
According to comScore MediaMetrix
(August 2008), blogs received 77.7 million
unique visitors in the US, out of a total
Internet audience of 188.9 million. Armed
with the knowledge that traffic equals
money, it’s easy to see why blogging
is catching on - merchants and affiliate
marketers alike.
Herein lies the trap.
Perhaps it’s simply a reflection of human
society but wherever there is money to
be made there’s always someone who
will abuse it. The abuse of blogging has
been seen in a phenomenon known as
‘astroturfing’ or fake blogging. These
bogus blogs, or ‘flogs’, are not just the
work of small-time marketers; companies
such as Sony, Coke, L’Oreal and Walmart
have all been outed as running a flog. The
damage is irreparable and criticism from
the blogosphere harsh.
How do I know if my blog is actually a
flog? Worried that the blogging police

By Jason Dodd
will soon be knocking at your door?
Review these three symptoms of a fake
blog to find out.
You’re not transparent – You hide who
you are and who you represent. You
might even go as far as to have fake
commenters on your blog. It’s important
to remember the whole idea behind
blogs – to give the little person a voice.
A lack of transparency hides or obscures
that voice.
You’re adding content that is pure
fiction or staged – Have you ever written
a product review post about a product
you’d never used but pretended you
had? It’s all too easy to just copy review
content and post it as your own and add
your affiliate link.
Your only goal is to monetize – It’s not
wrong to monetize your blog. In fact
you deserve to be compensated for the
time and effort involved in crafting your
wordy works of wonder. However, when
monetization becomes the sole focus of
your blog you run the risk of faking it.
Problogger Jack Humphrey is guided by
what he calls the ‘90/10 rule’. Essentially
this means he is providing valuable,
free content 90% of the time, and the
monetization takes care of itself.

Genuine blogs have staying power. While
it might feel like hard work to maintain
a genuine blog, the rewards make it
worthwhile. Over time you will develop
a loyal tribe of followers who appreciate
and respect your unique and refreshing
openness. If you’re a real person with a
real voice, your blog is bound to resonate
with readers as they sense that you are
actually interested in them and not
blogging simply to capture a clickthrough, a sale or an ad view.
Stay true and you’ll never have to worry
about being called out for faking it.

Jason Dodd works as a technical copywriter
for Affilorama.com, an online affiliate
training portal that teaches you how to
make money from affiliate marketing.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 27

28 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

The Workspaces

of Affiliate Marketers
By Shawn Collins
Some of those “gurus” with dubious claims of success
try to sell the affiliate lifestyle as a long vacation with an
auto-pilot business that makes them rich.
You’ve seen them - the hyperbolic sales pages that
feature some clown lounging on the beach.
I always like seeing the environments where fellow

Shawn Collins
, Affiliate Summ

it

affiliate marketers do their work - the real places.
One of my favorite threads on the Wicked Fire forum
is “What does your workspace/desk area look like for
an Aff Marketer?” where lots of photos are featured of
spots where affiliates get their work done.
My office is far from a beach, but it’s a geeky oasis for
me with a bunch of computers, gadgets, games, books,
and caffeine.
I spend a good part of most days there, and it’s sort of a
“mullet office”. The business end is in the front with my
main computer for most work, and then the setup in

ent Group

Trisha Lyn Fawver, Paulson Managem

the back is for editing videos and podcasts.
Here is a look at the workspaces of some of the folks in
the industry.
So we don’t work at the beach (most of us), and it’s all
harder than it looks on those sales pages. Still, we have
some pretty sweet gigs, don’t we?

Shawn is a Co-founder of Affiliate Summit and Co-Editorin-Chief of FeedFront Magazine.

liateCREW.com

Chuck Hamrick, affi

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 29

go

Brian Hawkins, Pin

Scott Jangro, MechMedia

Jason Lane,

Grandeur M

30 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

Nick Mattern, The Mattern Group

Eric Nagel, ericnagel.com

arketing

irectNet, Inc.

xD
Wendy Palmer, Re

Chris Park, Blair.com

Ashlee Pendleton, Clickbooth

Jeremy Schoemaker, ShoeM

Benny Tejed

a, BennyTejed

a.com

Dominic Yiadom,

buy.at

oney Media Group

Deborah Carney, TeamLoxly.com

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 31

Ten Ways to Promote Facebook
Business Pages By Mari Smith
Facebook’s Terms of Use state you can
only have one account and it must be
in your actual name, not your business
name. However, there is a place set
aside to represent and promote
businesses called Facebook “Fan” Pages
(“Pages”).

fans on Twitter and send them an @
message.
9. Send email broadcasts.
Send an email blast to your regular
opt-in list inviting them to join your
new Facebook Page. Consider offering
an incentive to do so. Also, include an
invitation to join your Page on your
email signature file.

The Pages feature is somewhat
obscured; scroll down to the foot of any
Facebook.com web page and click on
“Advertising.”
Here are ten suggestions for promoting
your Facebook Page (much of which can
be delegated to a trusty assistant/team):
1. Choose a Facebook Username.
Since Saturday, June 13, Facebook has
offered usernames on a first-come, firstserve basis for profiles and the Facebook
Pages. Details at www.facebook.com/
username/.
2. Talk about your Page on Twitter.
Tweet about your Page URL regularly.
Preferably not just, “Check out my
Facebook Page [insert link].” Rather, offer
something enticing like “New Affiliate
Marketing White Paper just loaded at
my Facebook fan page [insert link].”
3. Create content just for Fans.
Add content to your Page for your Fans
they cannot get anywhere else, e.g.
videos, tips, special gifts, discussion
threads, coupons, etc. (Of course, this
content could be repurposed later. You
might want to give your fans first dibs
though).
4. Conduct weekly drawings.
Run a weekly (or even daily) prize
drawing where you draw a Fan’s name
at random for a special prize, ideally
connected to your business product/
service.

32 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

Mari Smith

5. Play hide ‘n’ seek.
“Hide” something on your Page and
encourage your Fans to find it. e.g. a
special link, or discount code. Have
them tweet their answer to you. The first
“x” gets a prize.
6. Promote regular contests.
People love contests and video is real
easy to create from computer webcams
right onto Facebook. Create a photo
and/or video contest. Have your Fans
upload their photos/videos to your Fan
Page. (Each activity your fans do creates
a feed item for more visibility for you).
7. Provide a place for interaction.
Start a thread on your Discussion Board
that allows your fans to promote and/or
network with one another. For example,
invite your fans to submit their own
(and/or their favorite) blogs and Twitter
IDs.
8. Acknowledge fans.
When new Fans write on your Page Wall,
respond by writing back on their Profile
wall. (This helps create visibility for both
you and your Fans). Also, look for your

10. Test Social Ads.
Promote your Page with Social Ads.
Every time someone becomes your
Fan their name and photo may appear
alongside your ad. There’s a reason
Facebook combines Pages with Social
Ads under Advertising. Experiment with
a weekly/monthly budget and see what
happens.

Mari Smith is a social media consultant,
speaker and trainer, and she blogs at
http://marismith.com and http://www.
whyfacebook.com

Thank You
Affiliate Summit East
2009 Sponsors
PLATINUM SPONSOR

GOLD SPONSOR

SILVER SPONSOR

BRONZE SPONSOR

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 33

Saturday, August 8
Early Registration
Location: 2nd Floor Promenade
Time: 4:00pm – 8:00pm
Come by Saturday evening to pick up your
badge and attendee bag so you can enter
immediately at noon on Sunday when the
show opens!

Sunday, August 9
Booth Setup
Location: Exhibit Hall Area –
Americas Halls 1 & 2
Exhibitor Move In: 8:00am – 6:00pm
Registration
Location: 2nd Floor Promenade
Time: 8:00am – 6:00pm
Affiliate Meet Market
Location: Rhinelander Gallery
Time: 12:00pm – 6:00pm
Exhibitor Move In: 9:00am – 12:00pm
Affiliate Summit kicks off with an extended
session of structured, face to face
networking. Merchants will have tables set
to meet with affiliates to discuss their affiliate
programs and cut deals. Vendors that cater to
affiliates and merchants will also have tables
to share information about their products
and services. Each table is a meeting spot
for teaching, learning, closing deals, creating
partnerships and finding new opportunities.
There will be a silent auction to benefit Big
Brothers Big Sisters of New York City during
the Affiliate Meet Market.

Microniches – The Way to Mega Profits

Session 1a
Location: Classroom A – Gibson
Time: 12:00pm-1:00pm
Learn about how some affiliates are promoting products in a wide
variety of very small and focused niches, also known as microniches, which little have competition and inexpensive ad costs.
• Dush Ramachandran, VP Sales, Business Development &
Marketing, ClickBank (Twitter @DushR)
(This Session is Open to Gold and Platinum Pass Holders Only)
Dynamic Shopping – Content, Conversion, Analytics

Results are what matter in performance marketing. These industry
leaders will discuss how they work together to create long-term
partnerships. It will explore communication, commission, policies
& more.

Learn how companies of all sizes including major brands are
taking advantage of the tools , trends and technology to cut
through the noise and connect with potential customers.

Session 3a
Location: Classroom A – Gibson
Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm
Taking the leap across the pond? Find out where to start, what
you need to take into account, the challenges & pitfalls, and the
differences in the various markets via a recent case study.
• Robert Glasgow, Managing Director, Webgains
(This Session is Open to Gold and Platinum Pass Holders Only)
What the Heck is a Website Nowadays?

Session 3b
Location: Classroom B – Clinton
Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm
Businesses may be changing the way they look at web presence.

Session 3d
Location: Classroom D – Nassau Suite
Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm
Attendees can submit sites to the panel (in advance) for live site
audits and suggestions on how to help the internal site structure, as
well as ideas how to build a better site for organic rankings.
• Michael Gray, Owner, Atlas Web Services (Twitter @graywolf )
• Rae Hoffman, Owner, Sugarrae Inc (Twitter @sugarrae)

Session 3c
Location: Classroom C – Concourse A
Time: 3:00pm-4:00pm
This session will focus on the opportunity for online affiliates to
drive consumers into physical stores on a CPA basis. This is a huge
opportunity and represents the next frontier of our industry.
• Jonathan Treiber, CEO, RevTrax
(This Session is Open to Gold and Platinum Pass Holders Only)

Location: Sutton Complex
Time: 9:00pm – 12:00am
This is a networking social event open to all Affiliate Summit
attendees to get together for drinks and conversation in a nonclub atmosphere. If your preference is to turn the music down and
the lights up, join us to meet new people and create new business
opportunities.

Do you know any
SMALL BUSINESSES
that want to
DOUBLE THEIR SALES
GUARANTEED?
Offer them a free trial of Infusionsoft, the only
CRM + email marketing + eCommerce software solution
that offers a “Double Your Sales” guarantee.
As the referring affiliate, you’ll earn revenue for
free trial sign-ups and software sales.
Join today. It’s free and easy.

Session 4a
Location: Classroom A – Gibson
Time: 11:30am-12:30pm
An overview of the status of state advertising tax legislation, what
to expect going forward, and how to fight it.
• Wright Andrews, Partner, Butera & Andrews
• Bennet Kelley, Founder, Internet Law Center (Twitter @
internetlawcent)
(This Session is Open to Platinum Pass Holders Only)
How to Monetize Your Site with Widgets

Session 4b
Location: Classroom B – Clinton
Time: 11:30am-12:30pm
This presentation will discuss how to enhance your site using
various widgets, what works and what doesn’t, and how effective
different widgets are to your site.
• Woody Wood, Product Manager, Amazon (Twitter @
AmazonAssociate)
(This Session is Open to Platinum Pass Holders Only)
Seven Deadly Sins of Landing Page Optimization

Session 4d
Location: Classroom D – Murray Hill
Time: 11:30am-12:30pm
This session is a quick moving brain dump of how to use the most
advanced powerful tools to help you with SEO. Expect to learn
how you can walk out and use several SEO tools to grow revenues
today.
• Wil Reynolds, Associate, SEER Interactive (Twitter @
wilreynolds)
(This Session is Open to Platinum Pass Holders Only)

Session 6a
Location: General Session Room – Grand Ballroom Suite
Time: 3:30pm-4:30pm
(This Session is Open to All Pass Holders – Must be Registered as
Affiliate or Merchant)
As you enter the room, you will drop your business card in the
Bingo Networking box. You will then be given a bingo card where
you will write your name in the center square.
Next, you circulate with everyone throughout the room. To
complete the bingo card, you will need to meet 24 other people,
collect their business cards and have them write their names in
the open squares.
Then, we will call off the names on the business cards that
everyone dropped in the Bingo Networking box when they
arrived. Regular bingo rules apply thereafter. The winner is the
first person with five names in a row, either across, down or
diagonally.
In addition to the prize (TBD) for the winner of Bingo Networking,
everybody that participates will walk away a winner, because
everyone will be making new contacts while playing the game.

We will observe, analyze, dissect, and present the dynamics of
conversations, how and where they transpire – becoming digital
anthropologists in the process.
• Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks, PR 2.0 (Twitter @
briansolis)
(This Session is Open to Platinum Pass Holders Only)
Advertising on Facebook

You come to Affiliate Summit for the best networking and
more. Shouldn’t you get the best once the show floor closes?
That’s why, to celebrate the launch of the best affiliate
management solution, Click Progression, Intium Services
is granting VIP access to one of the most exclusive New
York nightclubs experiences – Ultra. We’re rolling out the
red carpet with a premium open bar and LA DJ Solomon
spinning the hottest tunes. You’ll take home fabulous gifts
to remember us by, but it’s sure to be an evening you won’t
forget. All the VIPs will be there; will you?
RSVP at http://www.intiumservices.com/affiliatesummit.aspx
Affiliate Summit Karaoke

Sponsored by TechKaraoke
Location: Sutton Complex
Time: 9:00pm – 12:00am
Think you have a great singing voice? Come out and rock
with TechKaraoke and Affiliate Summit. The mission is
simple: choose the best song from the selected list of artists
that will definitely get the crowd moving. Deborah (or
“Debbie”) Gibson is not allowed. Ever. It is everyone’s duty
to rock the mic!

The current economy and the sophistication of online shoppers
has created the “perfect storm” for online coupons. Come see how
they can be effective for your program.
• Michael Ouellette, Director, Publisher Development,
Commission Junction
• Kim Riedell, Vice President, Client Development – East,
Commission Junction
(This Session is Open to Platinum Pass Holders Only)
Key Trends in Performance Marketing

Session 8d
Location: Classroom D – Murray Hill
Time: 2:00pm-3:00pm
An informative discussion about the current explosion and future
of performance-based marketing, including what it all means for
advertisers, traditional agencies and publishers.

The Affiliate Triathlon is a three event contest of skill,
determination and dexterity open to all attendees at Affiliate
Summit East 2009.
The winning athlete (highest cumulative score across the three
competitions) will be awarded a 10’x 10’ exhibit hall booth (value:
$5,195) for Affiliate Summit West 2010 in Las Vegas. Yes, the booth
is transferable, so the winner can sell it at whatever cost they
wish.
The entry fee for the Affiliate Triathlon is $100, which is donated
directly to Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City.
Enroll at http://www.affiliatesummit.com/affiliate-triathalonenrollment/.
(This Session is Open to All Pass Holders)

aren’t going to be a rock star overnight, but
if you start now you can build over time.

Jeremy Schoemaker. Gary Vaynerchuk. Zac
Johnson. All names you know or should
know if you read this magazine. But have
you ever thought about why?

Ted’s Tips for Starting a
Personal Brand

The reason you know their names is that
these marketing mavens have taken the
time to build and maintain a personal
brand. You know them because they
want you to know them. They work at it.
They invest in it. They view building their
personal brand as an integral part of their
business endeavors.
Personal brands are powerful. In many
ways they can be more valuable than a
product, service or corporate brand. Want
to sell more wares? Slap Trump’s name
on a building, have Britney Spears front
a perfume or leverage the ShoeMoney
name to sell a set of Internet Tools. People
identify with people. Marketable people
with solid personal brands can sell almost
any product.
I believe every affiliate marketer should
invest time and money creating his or her
personal brand. Whether you are working
for yourself or an employer, a personal
brand can be an incredible long-term asset
that can open doors and create wealth. You

Define Your Brand Promise
What are you all about, your interests, your
specialty? Successful branding is about
promoting your natural strengths. If you
are a geek; be a super geek. If you are
good looking; show off that pretty mug of
yours. List out your assets and determine
what will appeal most to your audience.
Create a simple statement that defines
your brand promise, such as “Creative
disruption of the marketing industry with
a smile”.
Own Your Name
If you don’t already have your own
personal domain; go out and get one.
Your domain should either be based on
your real name or on a persona you plan
to go by. Any persona you create should
complement your brand promise. You
should try to lockup the name throughout
the socialsphere. Don’t be @johndoe on
Twitter and have the domain technojohn.
com. Be consistent whenever you can to
avoid confusion.

Make Your Mark
Every notable brand has a distinct logo
mark, color palette, font and style. If you
are not a designer, hire a real designer
with experience in branding. Share your
brand promise and collaborate to create a
professional graphic identity you like.
Share and Promote

Your new domain should serve as the
hub for all things you. Update your
content on a regular basis and use
social media tools to start spreading
the word. If you really want to grow
you are going to need to invest some
cash or other currency. Consider having
custom swag made, attending industry
events, and buying ads to get your
name out as much as possible. If you
want to be perceived as a rock star you
have to promote like a rock star.

A serial entrepreneur, Edward “Ted”
Murphy has founded six companies
since 1994, has a reputation for
disruptive creativity, and in a short time
has built one of the most recognizable
personal brands in the social media
community.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 43

Keynote Bio

Chris Brogan
Chris Brogan uses social media and technology to build digital relationships
for businesses, organizations, and individuals. He has merged his experience
in technology (enterprise IT and wireless telephony) with his passion for social
media, such that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s showing organizations how to use these tools inside
the firewall, as well as to build authentic conversations between coworkers,
customers, and even competitors, and demonstrating how these tools drive
business. Chris is Vice President of Strategy & Technology at CrossTech Media, an
integrated marketing and events company. He blogs at chrisbrogan.com.

Speaker Bios

Keynote Bio

Peter Shankman
Peter is the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, a marketing and PR firm. He
launched HelpAReporter.com to connect journalists with sources via social media.
He launched AirTroductions, which was acquired and relaunched as TripLife. He
is the author of “Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work and Why Your
Company Needs Them.”

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 45

Affiliate Summit East 2009 Speakers
Stephanie Agresta

Stephanie Agresta has been a force in the online marketing industry
for nearly 15 years. An expert in social media, affiliate program
management and Web 2.0 strategies, her mission is to connect
people, ideas, products and services using digital technology in
new and inventive ways. Stephanie is the Executive VP of Digital
Strategy and Social Media at Porter Novelli after five years of
building her successful personal consultancy. Stephanie has been
instrumental in developing innovative digital media strategies
for Fortune 500 brands including Microsoft, Windows Mobile and
PepsiCo. She started her career with iVillage, and has since held
prominent sales, marketing and business development roles with
Internet powerhouses such as Barnes & Noble.com, Register.com,
SpaFinder and Commerce360. Stephanie holds a master’s degree in
public affairs from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor’s from
Luther College. She blogs at internetgeekgirl.com and she tweets
@stephagresta.

Mike Allen

Mike Allen founded Shopping-Bargains.com in February 1999
and currently serves as President and “Chief Executive Shopper.”
Designed to be everything you need to save money online,
Shopping-Bargains.com was a finalist for the LinkShare Golden
Link Merchant’s Choice Award in 2005 and the LinkShare Golden
Link Advertiser’s Choice Award in 2008. Mike received the Affiliate
of the Year award at the 3rd Annual Affiliate Summit Pinnacle
Awards in 2009. In addition, Shopping-Bargains was inducted into
the Mississippi BBB’s Business Integrity Circle of Honor in 2007.
Mike attends most affiliate marketing industry conferences and
has presented at Affiliate Summit, BlogWorld and the Performics
Client Summit. Mike serves on advisory boards for LinkShare,
Affiliate Summit, the Google Affiliate Network and a4uexpo in
Europe. He also blogs at ReveNews and authored a chapter about
finding bargains online in a book for military families (Your Military
Family Network: Your Connection to Military Friendly Businesses,
Resources, Benefits, Information and Advice [2008] with a foreword
by Senator John McCain).

Wright Andrews

Wright Andrews is founder of Butera & Andrews, a former
President of the American League of Lobbyists and was included
in Washingtonian Magazine’s Top 50 Lobbyists. His clients have
included numerous major corporations, trade associations,
Governors of various states. In the last several years, he had
managed teams of lobbyists for large, multi-million dollar lobbying
coalition efforts at both the federal and state levels. Andrews began
his career as Chief Legislative Counsel to Senator Sam Nunn and has
been featured on many television and radio programs dealing with
lobbying.

Tim Ash

Tim Ash is the President & CEO of SiteTuners.com, a landing page
optimization firm that offers consulting, full-service guaranteedimprovement tests, and software tools to improve conversion

46 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

rates. During his 14 year involvement with the Internet, Tim has
worked with Verizon Wireless, American Express, Sony Music,
COMP USA, Universal Studios, Rand McNally, Red Envelope, Black
& Decker, and Coach to develop successful Internet initiatives. He
is a highly-regarded speaker and workshop leader at conferences
including Search Engine Strategies, Affiliate Summit, eMetrics,
OMS, and PPC Summit. Tim is a contributing columnist to several
publications including SearchEngineWatch, Website Magazine, and
Visibility Magazine. He received his B.S. and M.S. during his PhD.
studies in computer science from UC San Diego. He is the author
of the bestselling book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive
Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions (Wiley Press, 2008)
LandingPageOptimizationBook.com.

Daniel Assouline

Daniel Assouline is the CEO and co-founder of UpClick, the free
payment processing solution for software companies which
allows customers to cross-sell their products through a network of
affiliates, sharing subsequent revenues and boosting profits. Daniel
is a serial entrepreneur, having sold his first software business to
Sanyo at the age of 17 and then going on to build a number of other
technology and finance companies. Prior to building and running
his own internet companies, Daniel spent six years at Dell Computer
where he worked at Dell Labs drawing up long-term technology
plans for the company.

Sarah Austin

Sarah Austin is a Manhattan-based alternative media producer
and online lifecaster who interviews tech-oriented developers
and Internet personalities, both well known and obscure. The New
York Times, grouping her as a central figure in the new emerging
subculture of New York techie night life, described her as “the
founder of Pop17, a Web site posting her video interviews with techworld celebrities.”

Larry Bailin

Larry Bailin is bestselling author of the acclaimed marketing
book, Mommy, Where Do Customers Come From? and CEO of the
award winning Internet marketing company, Single Throw. Bailin
is an expert in the fields of, sales, Internet marketing and the new
customer culture. He has been hired as a speaker for the following
organizations: Microsoft, UPS, HealthSouth, The Direct Marketing
Association, The Conference Board, Business Marketing Association,
Search Engine Strategies, Affiliate Summit, BlogWorld, Podcast Expo,
American Marketing Association and others. Bailin has co-presented
with industry leaders such as Ask Jeeves, Yahoo! and MSN. He
has also shared the platform with bestselling author, Seth Godin.
Mommy, Where Do Customers Come From? released on November
15, 2007 and within hours of release rose to number 3 on Amazon’s
bestsellers list. The book has been dubbed “an instant classic” by
readers and the media. Advanced praise was given by bestselling
authors, Brian Tracy, Jeffrey Eisenberg and Harry Beckwith. Bailin has
also written for Yahoo’s search marketing Blog and was called, “one
of the top minds in the business” by the Yahoo search marketing
team.

Speaker Bios
Anthony Bajoras

As President and Co-Founder of m o v e software, Anthony has
led the launch of AffiliateReporting.com, a software solution that
dramatically improves affiliate search marketing campaigns by
automating pay-per-click profit analysis, bid management, and
optimization across numerous search engines by integrating data
from nearly all affiliate networks. From 1999 to 2008 Anthony led
the development and sale of m o v e marketing, a performance
search engine marketing agency that generated tens of millions of
dollars in affiliate commissions and more than $2 Billion in online
sales for nearly 1000 partners, ranging from start-up to Fortune
500. Prior to co-founding m o v e, Anthony was Director of Business
Development and Strategic Partnerships for DIRECTV Broadband
and Vice President of Business Development for E-Tropolis, a
Chicago based ISP and community/ social marketing innovator.
Anthony earned his undergraduate degree in Business Management
and Entrepreneurship from DePaul University in Chicago and
has pursued non-degree studies in Design and Engineering at
Northwestern University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Arizona
State University.

Debbi Ballard

Debbi A. Ballard is CEO of International Network Liaison
Corporation, a marketing/management consulting firm for the
multi-level marketing industry (MLM). For over twenty years, she
has done consulting for start-ups and established firms in the U.S.
and abroad. She is now also spearheading the development of mlm
best practices at www.mlmconsultantsblog.com. She is well known
for anticipating future trends in the industry and for her attention
to details. An expert witness in matters relating to MLM network
marketing, she is the author of the first book ever written for
networkers on how to build their businesses with an entrepreneurial
mindset. She is also author of the ebook “Sixty Things You Should
Know About MLM Compensation Plans.” She has addressed business
and governmental conferences on issues relating to MLM and the
entire direct selling industry.

Shashi Bellamkonda

Shashi Bellamkonda works for Network Solutions as the firstever Network Solutions “Social Media Swami”. Helped Network
Solutions aggressively move into the online space to listen to and
interact with its customers and win the 2008 SNCR Excellence in
New Communications Award for Online Reputation Management/
Corporate Division. A prolific Twitterer, blogger, and product
innovator, Shashi loves technology, testing new things and helping
people. A self-described “Internet junkie,” Shashi has presented
previously on “How to Sell Social Media to Your Boss” and “Social
Media tools for Small Business”. Shashi started his blog to keep his
many on and offline friends up to date on the coolest new things
to check out and answer their questions on social media and
technology from what to use and how, how to prevent popups, how
to avoid viruses, how to save computers from hackers, and the ever
popular “Why is my computer freezing?”

Jay Berkowitz

Jay Berkowitz is a dynamic marketing professional. He has managed
marketing departments for Fortune 500 brands: Sprint, CocaCola and McDonald’s and successful dot-com eDiets.com. Mr.
Berkowitz is the author of the Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing
Workbook, the host of the Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing
Podcast and Founder and CEO of www.TenGoldenRules.com , an
internet marketing consulting business based in South Florida. Ten
Golden Rules helps companies get more traffic to their websites and
convert that traffic to sales with a focus on improving internet profit.
Mr. Berkowitz is the immediate Past President of the American
Marketing Association South Florida and a founding Board Member
of SFIMA, the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association. Mr.
Berkowitz is a popular presenter at conferences and events such as
Affiliate Summit, The American Marketing Association, The Direct
Marketing Association, Search Engine Strategies, Ad-Tech, and the
CEO Executive Forum.

Jamie Birch

Currently I am the owner of JEBCommerce. We manage affiliate
programs for our clients as well as paid search, SEO, web
development and more. Since 2005, I have also been a contributor
at Revenews.com. Prior to JEBCommerce, I was the Director of
Affiliate Relations at Converseon, where I managed all aspects of
affiliate programs including recruiting, retention, strategy, while
managing a team of experienced affiliate managers. At Converseon,
I managed programs such as Hilton Hotels, Palm, Mikasa, Edmund
Scientifics and more. Prior to Converseon, I managed a multi-million
dollar affiliate program and search campaigns for Coldwater Creek,
a top 5 national women’s apparel retailer. I have also held positions
with a number of e-commerce and online marketing companies
where my focused was on performance marketing and customer
retention and activation initiatives. I also have many years of
experience in Search Engine Optimization, Email Marketing and
other tech marketing areas.

Scott Brinker

Scott is the president and CTO of ion interactive, a leading provider
of post-click marketing software and services in the search
marketing industry. Clients have included American Greetings,
Citrix, HSBC, Intuit, Procter & Gamble, Wellpoint, and Wyndham
Worldwide. Scott has over 12 years experience in web technology
and online marketing. He has spoken at SMX, SES, ad:Tech and EO
on the topic of post-click marketing and landing page strategy. He
has written articles for Advertising Age, Adweek, B2B Magazine,
DM News, MarketingProfs, and SearchEngineLand. He is also a
co-editor of the Post-Click Marketing Blog and a co-author of
the book “Honest Seduction: Using Post-Click Marketing to Turn
Landing Pages into Game Changers”. Scott has a BS in Computer
Science from Columbia University and an MBA from MIT. He also
writes a personal blog on marketing technology, Chief Marketing
Technologist.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 47

Speaker Bios
Michael Buechele

Since the early 90s, Michael has worked in publishing, both print
and online. Before the Tech Bubble burst, he joined DoubleClick
in NYCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Silicon Alley to learn about ad serving from the best in
the industry. Later, he went on to help some of the biggest and
best publishers get even better; companies like Cartoon Network,
Brightcove, Marvel Comics, National Public Broadcasting, CBS
Radio, and NBC Universal. In 2007, he started 11|15 Media after
seeing the tremendous opportunities in Performance Marketing,
publishing and to have a platform to teach leadership.

Deborah Carney

Deborah has been a professional photographer for 30 years,
including photographing weddings, other social events
and conferences, on location cat shows, as well as a fine art
photographer. She has been creating websites for 15+ years, that
all included photographs optimized for the web, because back
then they had to be since we were all on dialup! A selection of
her photos hang in hotels, homes and offices, and are published
in several cat breed books, as well as being scattered all over the
web and some newspaper publishing along the way. Currently an
affiliate and Outsourced Program Manager that teaches affiliates
how to optimize their sites and that uses images heavily in her
own sites. You can hear her tips on Affiliate ABCs and Make Your
Mark (art marketing) podcasts.

Alan Chapell

Chapell founded Chapell & Associates in 2003. Since then, his
firm has helped over 100 technology and media companies
craft their privacy and data strategy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from working with
startups as an angel investor to building programs for some of
the largest agencies and advertisers in the world. Email Alan AT
ChapellAssociates.com for more information.

Sal Conca

Sal Conca is a Senior Media Manager at NETexponent and
manages affiliate programs for Audible.com, iChapters.com
and the Financial Times. With a degree in Music Business from
the University of Miami and an MBA in Marketing from Hofstra
University, Sal has worked in the affiliate marketing industry
since 2001 where he first helped manage the 1800Flowers.com
Affiliate Program. From 2005 to 2008 he managed the Puritanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Pride affiliate program, a division of NBTY, Inc. which is the largest
vitamin and supplement manufacturer in the world. Sal was
responsible for doubling the multi-million dollar affiliate program
as well as increasing customer acquisition. While there he also
launched the Vitamin World affiliate program. Sal has managed
programs on multiple networks including Linkshare, Commission
Junction and Pepperjam and has extensive knowledge of
datafeed creation and integration, search engine optimization as
well as landing page design and optimization.

Brent Csutoras

Brent Csutoras is a seasoned Internet Marketing Consultant who
primarily specializes in Social Media, Viral Linkbait and Search
Engine Marketing strategies. Known for his work on Weird Asia
News, a popular website serving a growing audience of around
a million unique visitors a month, Brent has built a reputation
as a Social Media expert. Brent speaks regularly at some of the
largest and well known conferences, such as SMX, Pubcon, SES,
and InfoPresse. He has also been mentioned in Forbes.com,
interviewed forEntrepreneur.com, and was recently recognized
as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Online Marketers of 2008.
Brent has made guest appearances discussing the arts of Social
Media and the impacts it has on Search Engine Marking on highly
popular internet marketing radio shows such as Good Karma,
Rush Hour, and Webmaster on the Roof. Most recently, Brent was
named a Senior Editor for Social Media in the SEM Journal and
awarded a SEMMY.

David Dalka

David is a passionate voice for fully considering search engine
marketing/optimization, performance marketing and social
media innovation strategy at the c-level executive and board of
directors level and integrating the activities fully into corporate
culture. His interests are in seeing organizations outperform
by acting nimbly, with a bias for action and utilizing current
marketing technology to create customer focused experiences
that drive revenue growth! You may ask David to speak at your
conference or executive retreat, provide search marketing
strategy management consulting, visit his online marketing
strategy blog or follow him on Twitter.

Trisha Lyn Fawver

Trisha burst onto the affiliate marketing scene in 2006 with no
shortage of enthusiasm. Quickly turning her passionate desire
to learn into actionable items and real results, she lead the way
in repairing a neglected affiliate program and establishing it as
a top program, all while managing email marketing and other
assorted marketing campaigns at PsPrint. Trisha is now an affiliate
manager with Paulson Management Group, a leading outsourced
program management and online marketing firm. Blogging
about marketing and social media at TrishaLyn.com has set her
apart from the pack and allowed her to gain insight and expertise
within the dynamic industry of affiliate marketing.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 49

Todd Friesen

Todd Friesen is considered by many to be an SEO pioneer.
He entered the SEO world in 1998 and has since worked with
top-name clients like Sharper Image, Nike, Neiman Marcus and
Accor Hotels North America on natural search optimization. He
is an expert in search engine marketing, a former administrator
at Webmasterworld, and a former moderator for Search
Engine Watch. He is co-host of the popular SEO Rockstars on
WebmasterRadio.FM, as well as a regular speaker at Search Engine
Strategies, WebmasterWorld Pubcon, SMX and other conferences.
Todd holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University
of Calgary and currently resides in Seattle, WA.

Karen Garcia

Karen Garcia is a co-founder and partner at GTO Management, an
outsourced affiliate program management company. Karen has
ten years of experience in e-commerce and marketing. Beginning
in 1999, Karen successfully developed and managed the affiliate
program for Shari’s Berries. While at Shari’s, she increased
brand awareness, affiliate performance and customer retention
through the effective use of digital methods, e-mail marketing
and promotions, print advertisements, SEO and SEM campaign
development. Karen has consulted on and profitably managed
dozens of affiliate programs on many different network platforms
ranging from large national brands such as National Geographic
and MediFast to niche merchants like BowlingShirt.com and
MakeBeer.net. Karen is also a co-founder of CAMA, the Christian
Affiliate Marketing Association, a faith-based organization formed
in 2007 to promote fellowship, wholesome Christian affiliate
programs, and integrity and fairness in affiliate marketing.

Robert Glasgow

Robert co-founded Webgains together with Peter Dunham,
Webgains Technical Director, in 2004. Robert’s primary
responsibilities include the day-to-day management of Webgains
in the UK, and the strategic direction of the Webgains business
across Europe and North America. In addition, Robert has been
charged with developing Webgains into a sizeable pan-European
& international media company. Webgains UK is now a significant,
well-respected business and Webgains has fully localized
platforms and in-country teams in France, Germany, Holland,
Denmark, Sweden, Spain and the USA, which opened recently.
Robert has extensive experience in running both Internet-related
and high-growth businesses, having spent several years bringing
American web company AllAdvantage.com to Europe. Robert
also has a number of years experience running online marketing
companies, joining Trafficmaid in 2001 and Affiliate Window in
June 2003 as Managing Director.

Jen is JGoode Designs, she is the founder and illustrator
behind the unique apparel, gifts and handmade goodies
that the company offers. She has been a professional in the
design industry for 14 years, changing direction from client
focused Graphic Design to becoming a self-promoted artist
offering “doodles on t-shirts” in 2006. She has taken hold of the
excitement surrounding new media, combining the fast paced
worlds of performance marketing, social media, and print on
demand as a means to promote herself and her work. Currently,
her most recognized piece is a cartoon penguin often seen
wearing artist garb. Jen’s motto for daily success is “Inspiring
smiles every day”.

Leonard L. Gordon

Leonard L. Gordon serves as the Director of the Northeast
Regional Office of the Federal Trade Commission, where he
supervises the investigation and litigation of both consumer
protection and antitrust matters. Mr. Gordon joined the FTC in
2005 as a senior attorney, and, since joining the agency, he has
led numerous antitrust and consumer protection investigations.
He became the Assistant Director in August 2007 and the Director
in March 2008. Mr. Gordon also regularly speaks to legal, business
and consumer groups on both antitrust and consumer protection
topics. Mr. Gordon joined the FTC after 17 years as an associate
and then a partner with the firm now known as DLA Piper, where
his practice focused on antitrust, business tort and general
business litigation and counseling. Mr. Gordon graduated from
the George Washington University Law School with honors in
1988.

David Graff

David Graff is the General Counsel and Senior Vice-President,
Corporate Development, for Epic Advertising, an on-line
marketing solutions provider. Based in New York, Epic Advertising
develops and coordinates comprehensive and strategic online
marketing campaigns for advertisers across multiple industries.
Mr. Graff is also the Chairman of Online Intelligence, a consulting
firm providing services in the area of online fraud prevention and
detection. Mr. Graff previously served as Executive Vice-President
and General Counsel for Edison Schools Inc. He is a frequent guest
speaker on issues related to online advertising and regulatory
compliance. An active member of the IAB, DMA and the PMA, Mr.
Graff regularly consults with industry leaders and professionals on
a wide range of matters concerning internet marketing.

Speaker Bios
Michael Gray

Michael Gray has worked in the internet world since 1998, when
he became Webmaster for a major retailer in New York. He
developed their website strategy and grew their online sales from
$100,000 to over $25 million in annual website sales. Michael then
moved into affiliate marketing and started his own consulting
firm. Michael has worked with many businesses to develop and
implement their Social Media Strategy. He also specializes in blog
development and Search Engine Optimizations for businesses of
all sizes. Michael has been a speaker at Search Engine Strategies,
PubCon, SEOClass and SMX. He is also moderator at Sphinn and
Webmaster World. Michael is President of Atlas Web Service,
located in Long Island, New York.

Jeffrey Greenbaum

Jeffrey A. Greenbaum is a partner at the law firm of Frankfurt
Kurnit Klein & Selz, PC. Mr. Greenbaum counsels advertisers,
online marketers, media companies, advertising agencies, and
production companies on advertising and intellectual property
matters. He also represents advertisers in connection with
advertising litigation and regulatory investigations, as well as
before the National Advertising Division and other self-regulatory
organizations. Mr. Greenbaum is a director of the Promotion
Marketing Association and has previously served as chair of the
Committee on Consumer Affairs of the New York City Bar. He
recently spoke at the “FTC at 100” workshop, and has also spoken
at conferences sponsored by the National Advertising Division,
the Promotion Marketing Association, the Electronic Retailing
Association, and many others. He has been recognized as one
of the nation’s leading lawyers in media and entertainment by
Chambers USA.

Kevin Grimes

Kevin D Grimes is a 1982 graduate of Colorado College with a
Bachelor of Arts degree and received his law degree in 1985 from
the Southern Methodist University School of Law. After serving
in U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, he joined a general
civil law firm with a diverse corporate and litigation practice. He
then moved to Metaluca, where he was exclusively responsible
for day-to-day legal support of all departments. After leaving
Metaluca, he began his own law firm to provide comprehensive
legal services to direct selling, multilevel marketing, and network
marketing companies ranging from start-ups to those of
international prominence.

Kelly Harman

Kelly Harman is President of Zephyr Strategy, a strategic
planning and marketing consulting firm located in Virginia.
Zephyr specializes in helping companies integrate today’s online
technologies with proven, sales-driven strategies to capture new
clients, keep existing customers and grow revenue profitably.
Zephyr’s clients have included MCI, Sony, Panasonic, Tandberg,
Lockheed Martin, and Polycom. The company also has a roster
of international clients. Ms. Harman is a serial entrepreneur with
twenty years of business experience. Prior to starting her own
firm, Kelly was part of a management team that grew a leading
videoconferencing systems integrator from $8 million to $100
million in a five year period. She has been involved in six M&As,
and assisted with the branding and launch of four technology
companies. Learn more about Zephyr Strategy at www.
z3strategy.com or email Kelly at Kelly@z3strategy.com.

Tyrona Heath

Tyrona Heath is a program manager for customer education
specializing in the Google AdWords product. In this role, she
develops programs to help Google customers meet their
marketing goals. She also supports the needs of customers with
the Google Advertising Professionals program (GAP). After joining
Google in 2003, Tyrona spent several years helping advertisers
as an AdWords account manager before moving on to manage
Google AdWords customer education programs. Tyrona has
delivered training to thousands of successful Google AdWords
users and specializes in helping businesses and non-profits build
awareness among their target audiences. Tyrona lives in New York
City where she enjoys competing in track and field races.

Rae Hoffman

Eight years ago Rae started a small website about her son and
his medical condition that became one of the first international
support groups and largest website in general on the topic. It
earned national media coverage and helped further medical
research in the field. Investigating ways to support that site,
she found affiliate marketing and became one of the most well
known voices in the affiliate landscape and organic search engine
optimization. Today, her current area of research is site auditing
and advanced organic link development techniques relating to
all of the major engines. Ms. Hoffman is the Principal of Sugarrae
SEO Consulting. She also owns numerous successful personal
websites on a wide range of topics.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 51

Mike Jacobs

Mike Jacobs is Chief Services Officer for iMarketing LTD, an online
marketing agency serving clients like Yahoo!, Dow Jones, eDiets,
Forbes, and AARP. A pioneer in online marketing and noted
search guru before there was a Google, Mike is a consultant to
several hedge funds, and his campaign work has been recognized
in national conference presentations by Google and in eBay’s
marketing training program. Mike has been featured in Revenue,
E-Commerce Times, Enterprise 2.0, DM News, and The New York
Times. He has spoken at venues including Commission Junction
University, Internet.com’s Affiliate Solutions, and LinkShare
Summit & Symposium. Previously, Mike was co-founder and
Director of Marketing for Expression Engines / Bigfoot Interactive,
sold to Epsilon in 2006. He also founded WebMogul – one of
the original SEO firms – and worked as a venture capitalist and
Fortune 100 strategy consultant. Mike graduated Yale University
magna cum laude in three years with a BA in Economics.

Zac Johnson

At the ripe age of 15, Zac Johnson began making money
online designing web site banners for $1 each. A self taught
entrepreneur, Zac’s been making money online for over 10 years
and been involved in nearly every facet of affiliate marketing. Still
a one man company, a recent highlight of Zac’s success is “How I
Made $860, 538.38 Profit in 4 Months!” from one web site, and can
be read at his Super Affiliate blog. Zac’s latest focus is his personal
blog “Inside the Secret Life of a Super Affiliate” (ZacJohnson.com),
where he provides readers firsthand accounts of his experiences,
successes & failures. In addition to his own success stories, Zac
reviews affiliate networks and informs readers how & where they
should be making new money. He plans on releasing a case study
of his secret tips free through his blog instead of in an eBook.
Zac’s blog has grown to over 1500 subscribers and has referred
over $100,000 in new business to his advertisers and network
partners in less than a year.

Jessie Jones

Jessie Jones is the founder and CEO of PopShops.com, a leading
provider of aggregated product content and search for over
50 million products from over 2,000 merchants across all major
affiliate networks. Having spent over 16 years in the technology
industry at Microsoft and its whirlwind spin-off, Expedia.com,
she is a firm believer in maintaining a nimble development
environment and a creative, user-focused team. Originally from
Austin, and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design,
Jessie now lives in Seattle with her husband, son, and two dogs.

Kristopher B. Jones

Kristopher B. Jones is well-known throughout the search-engine
and affiliate marketing community as a true pioneer and leading
voice on trends and strategies for effective online marketing.
As President and CEO of Pepperjam, an Inc. 500 Company
and industry-leading search, affiliate and media management

company. Kristopher is looked to by thousands of businesses
worldwide as one of a small group of pure internet marketing
experts. Kristopher was recognized in 2005 as an Entrepreneur
of the Year by Bank of America and as one of the “Top 20″
Business Leaders in Northeastern, Pennsylvania under the age
of 40. Kristopher previously worked as a senior staff member to
Congressman Paul E. Kanjorski (PA-11) and is a frequent speaker
at conferences including Search Engine Strategies (SES), eTail,
ERA, and Affiliate Summit, among others.

Bennet Kelley

Bennet Kelley is founder of the Internet Law Center and has been
at the center of many of the hottest Internet issues over the past
decade. Kelley, who previously was Assistant General Counsel
for ValueClick, is Vice Chair of the California Bar’s Cyberspace
Committee and a contributor to the Journal of Internet Law.
Kelley spoke at the 2007 and 2008 Affiliate Summit West.

Gary Kibel

Gary Kibel (gkibel@dglaw.com) is a partner with the law firm
of Davis & Gilbert LLP. He practices in the areas of New Media,
Advertising/Marketing and IP law. Gary regularly counsels
clients with respect to issues such as interactive advertising,
search marketing, affiliate marketing, enterprise technology
implementations, contextual/behavioral advertising, privacy
and data security, gaming, content licensing, wireless services
and entertainment, joint ventures, copyrights, trademarks,
corporate matters and laws affecting the Internet. Davis & Gilbert
is widely regarded as the premier law firm in the U.S. representing
advertising, marketing and promotions agencies, from specialized
shops to the largest advertising holding companies in the world,
and also represents prominent technology and entertainment
companies, marketers, and advertising trade associations. Prior to
becoming an attorney, Gary was an Information Systems Analyst
with Merrill Lynch.

Beth Kirsch

Beth Kirsch is part of a founding team that has boot strapped
uAmplfy over the past two years and she is responsible for
strategy, sales, and business development. Beth was previously
the VP of Marketing and Sales at Like.com, where she brought
the product to market and grew revenue from zero to millions.
Before that, she was a Director of Marketing at LowerMyBills.com,
an Experian Company and top five Internet advertiser. She also
directed online media, search, and affiliate channels for Audible
during its high growth period. Beth has been an expert speaker
at industry conferences on a regular basis including, Ad:Tech,
Affiliate Summit, and the Direct Marketing Association. She also
blogs on ReveNews, and her entries have been redistributed in
numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal Online,
paidContent.org, iMediaConnection, and MarketingVOX. Beth
was part of a team at ReveNews that received MarketingSherpa’s
“Best Blog 2006” award.

Speaker Bios
Jim Kukral

Jim Kukral (The Web Coach) is an award-winning blogger,
speaker, author and business web coach. For over 10 years, Jim
has been working with both small businesses and Fortune 500
customers to help them find success online. Jim is a graduate of
The University of Akron. You can read about Jim and his many
online successes by visiting www.jimkukral.com.

Eric Lander

Eric Lander is a search marketing consultant with agency and
in-house experience since 2000. Co-founding two separate SEO
firms and later managing search marketing for ADP, Incorporated,
Lander’s experience and familiarity in all types of web sites makes
him a valuable asset to a website review panel. Previous clients of
Lander’s include Johnson & Johnson, Automotive.com, Fleishman
Hilliard, Career Education Corporation, Dealix, The George
Washington University and The Carter Center. Throughout his
career Lander has enjoyed writing articles and informative pieces
that assist web site owners with addressing various challenges in
the search marketing industry. Articles first began appearing in
2002 on sites like SEO Today, SitePoint and Search Engine Guide.
Today, Eric serves as the Associate Editor for Search & Social
Media’s online news resource, Search Engine Journal.

David Lewis

David Lewis is CEO and founder of 77Blue which operates online
shopping websites including Cashbaq. David has worked for and
founded Internet and software businesses for over a decade with
companies including Overture / GoTo.com, Intuit, Edmunds.com,
SeeBeyond, Union Bank of California and Digital Planet. Earlier
in his career, David was a Certified Public Account and received
his MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School. David was awarded the
Horizon Award for Innovation by Commission Junction in 2006.
David recently launched his first Facebook app, statustalker.

Brian Littleton

As the founder and CEO of ShareASale, Brian has connected
thousands of merchants and affiliates alike, ensuring mutual
profitability while preserving the sprit and core values of the
affiliate marketing industry. Since 2000, his leadership and vision
have helped shape the industry into what it is today. ShareASale
currently supports over 2,200 small- to medium-sized merchants,
and works with its clients, both on the advertising and publishing
end, to maximize their individual potential.

Stephanie Lichtenstein

Since discovering affiliate marketing in 2007, Stephanie
Lichtenstein has found her passion. She is a proud affiliate
program manager with Andy Rodriguez Consulting in Miami,
FL. Her lasting partnerships are built on a foundation of trust.
Stephanie voices her opinion on industry topics and promotes
advocacy on her blog: StephanieLichtenstein.com. She actively
participates in forums and social media with an emphasis on her

addiction to Twitter. Stephanie’s key to success is maintaining
open communications.

Graham MacRobie

Graham MacRobie is President and CEO at Alias Encore, a
publisher focused on helping companies increase highly
qualified traffic to their websites through strategic acquisition
of misspelled domain names. Prior to Alias Encore, Graham was
founder, President and CEO at CitizenHawk. Graham believes that
it is no longer sufficient for a company to just own the domain
name that exactly matches their trademark because significant
revenues are surreptitiously diverted to competitors through
literally millions of “typosquatting” sites that seek to improperly
capitalize on the accidental keystrokes of unsuspecting Internet
users. Passionate about helping the good guys win, Graham is
an expert on many forms of Internet-based fraud. At Alias Encore
and previously, Graham has designed automated systems to
detect fraud and practical business processes for large-scale fraud
management. Affiliate programs, and the particular challenges
that they present, have been an area of special interest for him.

Todd Malicoat

Todd Malicoat is an independent marketing and business
consultant. He’s done strategic consulting for companies large
and small, and built and sold several sites of his own. Todd
has been an active conference speaker at both Search Engine
Strategies, Webmaster World Pubcon, and other industry
conferences for several years, and is considered a leading
authority on search and social marketing. He has been cited by
Inc. Magazine, The Sydney Herald, Website Magazine, The New
York Post, Infoworld, and many other media outlets on search,
reputation management, social media, and other web related
issues. Todd also runs a blog that covers all areas of web traffic
acquisition called Stuntdubl.com – that echoes his mantra of
“Getting hit by traffic…not cars.”

Peter Marinello

Peter C. Marinello is the Director of the National Advertising
Review Council’s (“NARC”) Electronic Retailing Self Regulation
Program (“ERSP”) and a Vice President of the Council of Better
Business Bureaus, Inc. (“Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc.”).
Before joining NARC in July 2004, Peter had been the Associate
Director at the National Advertising Division of the CBBB (“NAD”)
since 2000 and a Senior Staff Attorney with NAD since March
of 1993. Peter has written over 500 self-regulatory decisions on
various advertising topics and products including nuclear energy,
dietary supplements, direct response and on-line marketing and
has spoken on behalf of the NAD and ERSP at a number of trade
conferences and workshop seminars throughout the country.
He has also been the author of a number of articles regarding
advertising self-regulation in various trade publications. Peter is
a graduate of St. Johns University School of Law and has been a
member of the New York State Bar since 1988.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 53

Don Mathis

Don Mathis is the CEO of Epic Advertising, and is responsible for
the strategic vision and overall management of the enterprise.
He was previously the company’s President and COO and, earlier,
the SVP of Operations and Technology. Prior to Epic, Don most
recently served as COO of Small World Sports. Previous posts
include: CFO of the government consultancy organization FH
Inc.; operational restructuring advisor for the turnaround firm
AlixPartners; strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company;
programmer and technology consultant with Accenture. Don’s
background also includes service as a Naval Officer, most recently
as a mobilized reservist following the 9/11 attacks, and previously
as a P-3 anti-submarine patrol aircraft Flight Communications
Officer. Don graduated with honors from Harvard Business School
and Vassar College.

Melanie Mitchell

Melanie Mitchell is currently the SVP of Search Strategy at Digitas.
She is responsible for managing the Digitas Search Engine
Marketing Knowledge Center that ensures industry trends,
new strategies and tactics, and best practices are continuously
shared, enabling Digitas to stay on the forefront of this everevolving industry for the agency and their clients. Prior to this
role, Melanie was VP of Marketing at Folio Investments, Inc where
she was responsible for all marketing and PR; VP of SEO/SEM
at AOL where she developed strategy, processes, procedures,
tracking technology, reporting and managed the team tasked
with driving traffic to AOL.com’s open web business (including all
AOL sites, plus brands such as MapQuest, Moviefone, AIM, TMZ)
via paid and organic search; and was a Sr. Marketing Manager at
VeriSign/Network Solutions where she managed direct response
marketing campaigns through online, SEM, SEO and strategic
alliances for both Network Solutions and NameSecure.com.

Kate Morris

Kate Morris is one of the Founding Demons at Marketing
Demons, a new twist on search engine marketing consulting
and management. She specializes in paid search, natural
optimization, social media, and everything fun about search
marketing. Speaking and interacting with other search marketers
and business owners is what really makes her tick though. Kate
has spoken at SMX East and PubCon in the past year covering a
plethora of topics. You can find her ramblings at KateMorris.com
as well as other sites like Bruce Clay and Search Engine Journal
where she has guest posted.

Paul Moss

Paul Moss has been developing online affiliate and cooperative
business solutions for over 10 years in many diverse industries
including insurance, medical, pharmaceutical, financial, sporting
goods and various retail industries. His success centers on
his ability to leverage business partnerships that are low risk/
high reward achieving positive cash flow at early stages. Paul’s

54 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

profitable, scalable programs generate long-term revenue and
qualified customers. Before starting Moss Affiliate Marketing, Paul
built the affiliate program at Insurance.com through innovative
solutions catapulting revenues well into the double digit millions.
He also worked for MEBN, Inc. and Road Runner Sports a leading
sporting goods retailer where he managed multi-million dollar
partner programs. Paul holds a B.S. in Business Administration
from University of Phoenix. He served in the U.S. Navy. Paul
dedicates time mentoring high school and college students in
business skills and career development.

David Naffziger

David Naffziger is President and CEO of BrandVerity, an online
trademark monitoring firm. BrandVerity provides best-of-breed
tools that monitor global brands and identify online trademark
abuse. BrandVerity’s first product, PoachMark, provides a
complete PPC trademark monitoring solution for merchants,
their affiliate managers and their compliance departments.
PoachMark currently monitors over 100 affiliate programs on
behalf of leading brands, agencies and OPMs. David was formerly
the VP of Engineering at Judy’s Book, a venture-backed reviewsbased yellow pages and social network. Prior to Judy’s Book,
David co-founded and ran the Internet geolocation technology
team at Quova, the provider of Internet geolocation technology
to Google, Yahoo and MSN. The search engines use Quova’s
technology to geotarget PPC advertisements. David received his
BS from MIT.

Vinny O’Hare

Vincent has been a successful affiliate and webmaster for several
years, starting out originally as an eBay Power Seller. He uses
images and photographs extensively in his sites to help inspire
authenticity and trust with his visitors, plus gain search engine
traffic from proper use of images, images tags and image titles.
You can hear his tips on the Affiliate ABCs podcast.

Michael Ouellette

Michael Ouellette is the Director Publisher Development at
Commission Junction. Michael Ouellette leads Commission
Junction’s Publisher Development team; including Publisher
Channel Development, a business development team which
brings new publishers and emerging technologies to the CJ
Marketplace. He is focused on continuously growing client
revenue with mid level publishers and is instrumental in growing
the CJ Performer™ program that facilitates strategic relationships
between top-performing publishers and key advertisers. Michael
brings a unique perspective to the business, having worked in
affiliate marketing for over 11 years as a publisher, advertiser and
network representative. Prior to Commission Junction Michael
was VP, Merchant Development at OneCause and Director,
Business Development at Compete. He holds a Bachelors Degree
from the Rhode Island College.

Speaker Bios
Scott Parent

Scott Parent is the Vice President of Emerging Media & Strategy at
MediaTrust. He has been involved in the online media space for
the last ten years with expertise in content creation, production
and social community building. In addition to his weekly writing
for numerous blogs, he has been a contributor to Adotas
Magazine, a member of the IAB UGC & Social Media Committee,
and the host of the popular web programs Relevantly Speaking
and American Cliche. Scott also served as the Executive Producer
of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s online video
series. Scott holds a bachelor’s degree in broadcast production
from Franklin Pierce College and a master’s degree in corporate
policy studies from Boston University.

Christopher Park

Christopher Park has been Blair.com’s Affiliate/Partnerships
Manager since January, 2001, and has been working with Blair’s
paid search program since September, 2004. Additionally, he has
been employed by Blair for over 20 years. The Blair.com affiliate
program was featured in the “premier” and Sept./Oct. 2006 issues
of Revenue magazine, and Chris has been interviewed for articles
in publications such as Multichannel Merchant and Marketing
Today. Chris is an active participant on industry message boards,
and a frequent speaker at affiliate marketing events. When
he’s not living the dream that is affiliate marketing, Chris is a
Councilman for the City of Warren, PA, and coaches Junior High
School Football for the Beaty Dragons. Chris lives in Warren with
his 2 sons, Jacob and Nathan.

Neil Patel

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg,
and KISSmetrics. Through these 2 companies he has helped large
corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and
Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not
only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was
also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall
Street Journal.

Russ Pechman

Russ is Vice President at LinkShare Corporation, where he is
responsible for the strategy and overall management of the lead
generation business including the Lead Advantage Network. He
has worked at LinkShare for five years, previously as the founding
Director of the lead generation business and prior to that, as a
Senior Account Manager, managing the affiliate programs for
some of the large retail brands. Russ previously founded and
sold an online retail company for Israeli-made toys, Little Israel.
In a previous life, Russ worked as a reporter and managing editor
for Institutional Investor, Inc. Russ graduated with an MBA from
Cornell University and a BA from Brandeis University.

Lisa Picarille

was the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Revenue Magazine.
Currently, she co-hosts the popular Affiliate Thing podcast with
Shawn Collins and is a regular panelist on The Spew, a podcast
about women in online marketing. Lisa is a veteran journalist
who began her career as a professional sports writer in Boston.
She has also headed the news departments Wired.com, TechWeb.
com, TechTV.com and CRN.com. Her work has appeared in Rolling
Stone, CRM Magazine, PCWeek, MacWeek, Computerworld and
InfoWorld. Lisa is a frequent speaker at industry conferences
including Ad: Tech, the LinkShare Symposium, Affiliate Summit,
Web 2.0, Blog World Expo, and the Social Media Marketing
Summit. She is a founding board member for the Performance
Marketing Alliance and the 2008 winner of LinkShare’s Golden
Link Award for Most Vocal Performance Marketing Advocate.

Scott Polk

Scott Polk has built his expertise as a knowledgeable and
experienced Search Engine Optimization strategist for more than
11 years. He is currently working as the Senior SEO Analyst/SEO
Evangelist at Bruce Clay, Inc in Simi Valley, CA. Scott concentrates
his resourcefulness and skills on the diversified aspects of Search
Engine Optimization for clients, where he’s earned the distinction
of consistent top rankings in all major search engines. He is
consistently involved in technologies that maximize usability
and accessibility when optimizing/developing large web sites as
well as identifying problems and solutions that result in major
cost saving strategies. Highly successful and respected within the
Search Engine Optimization communities, Scott has consulted
and been employed by successful internet companies such as:
Edmunds.com, AT&T Wireless, ABC News (local),Turner Properties
(PGA/PGA Tour, Sports Illustrated, etc …) and numerous others.

Geno Prussakov

Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov is a graduate of the University of
Cambridge. He is the author of “A Practical Guide to Affiliate
Marketing” (2007), the “Online Shopping Through Consumers’
Eyes” (2008), international speaker, senior editor for the affiliate
marketing section of the Search Engine Marketing Journal, and
regular contributor to Website Magazine, FeedFront Magazine
and Econsultancy.com’s blog. Geno is the founder and CEO of
AM Navigator, an outsourced affiliate program management
company, and he was voted the “Best OPM of the Year” for three
years in a row (2006-08) by the largest online affiliate marketing
community, ABestWeb.com. He is now working on his doctorate,
and continues to write and pro-actively manage a number of
affiliate programs.

Dush Ramachandran

Dush Ramachandran is the Vice President of Sales, Marketing and
Business Development for ClickBank. ClickBank is the largest online retailer dedicated to digital products and operates a global
network of 110,000 active affiliates.

Lisa Picarille is a consultant specializing in the online marketing,
branding, social media and content creation. Previously, she

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 55

Ramon Ray

Ramon Ray is editor and technology evangelist of
Smallbiztechnology.com and has been using computers for
over 20 years, is the author of Technology Solutions for Growing
Businesses (Amacom) and has written thousands of technology
articles & news posts for Smallbiztechnology.com. His freelance
writing includes New York Enterprise Report, Inc Magazine, Black
Enterprise, CNet, Var Business, TechTarget, Entrepreneur.com,
Microsoft and File Maker. As a former small business technology
consultant, Ramon has years of hands on expertise. He is often
quoted in the media and his speaking includes PC Expo, Inc
500 and SMB Nation 2005. He is on the board of directors of
the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce and a member of their
technology committee. He is co-producer of the annual Small
Business Summit.

Wil Reynolds

Over the past 10 years, Wil Reynolds has dedicated himself to
doing two things well: driving traffic to sites from search engines
and analyzing the impact that traffic has on the bottom line of
companies. Wil’s career began at a web marketing agency in 1999,
where he spearheaded the SEO strategies for companies like
Barnes & Noble, Disney, Harman Kardon, Debeers, Doubleclick,
Hotjobs, and Mercedes Benz USA. For the last 6 years, Wil and
the team of search professionals at SEER Interactive have been
assisting clients in maximizing their visibility and sales using
search engines in both SEO and SEM. You can catch Wil speaking
with anyone who wants to learn about search, whether it is in a
coffee shop or a major conference, it just runs through the veins!
His goal at every speaking engagement is simple: Make sure
everyone walks out with at least 1 new piece of information or
perspective on an SEO topic.

Kim Riedell

Kim Riedell oversees East Coast client account management.
She joined Commission Junction from BeFree when the two
companies merged in 2003 and has since managed account
teams to consistently grow client revenue. Prior to Commission
Junction, Riedell was a director at Student Advantage and has
held sales and marketing positions at Lightbridge and MCI
Telecommunications. She has a bachelor’s degree from the
University of New Hampshire and is currently pursuing her MBA
at the Simmons School of Management. This is similar content
to what was delivered in a CJ webinar that received excellent
response. We had far many registrants than we had room for so
we think this topic is still very compelling.

Lisa Riolo

Lisa Riolo is an active member in the performance marketing
community and remains committed to its further growth and
achievement. As a consultant, she helps online businesses
transform potential and opportunity into profits and results. Lisa’s
previous experience includes a senior vice president of business

56 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

development role at Commission Junction and managerial roles
at Peet’s Coffee & Tea and Bank of America. She holds a bachelor’s
degree in psychology from Claremont McKenna College. In
addition to speaking at key industry events, Lisa can be found
online at lisariolo.com or follow her on Twitter @lisariolo

Bud Rosenthal

With over ten years of expertise in leading successful ventures
and established technology companies, Bud Rosenthal now
serves as CEO of TurnHere. A passionate entrepreneur and
industry veteran, Bud is also on the advisory board of several
national non-profits and technology start ups. Prior to TurnHere,
Bud served as CEO of WorkMetro, an online job board acquired
by Jobing.com in 2008. Before that, he was an Entrepreneurin-Residence at Charles River Ventures (CRV), an early-stage
venture capital firm with $2 billion under management. In 2005,
he spearheaded RealNetwork’s Rhapsody music subscription
business. As Vice President of the $100 million division, he helped
grow the Rhapsody subscriber based to more than one million
subscribers, establishing and managing distribution partnerships
with Cox Cable, Comcast, and Best Buy. In 1998, Bud cofounded Bigstep, where he served as Vice President of Business
Development. He earned an MBA from the Wharton School at the
University of Pennsylvania.

Steve Schaffer

Steve Schaffer is an Internet strategy and product marketing
professional with a 20-year record of growing start-ups and
established Internet and software companies. Vertive was
founded in 2003 and is now a leader in performance marketing.
The Company publishes more than 25 vertically focused websites
with its Performance Publishing Platform™. Vertive launched
Offers.com in February 2009 as the first place to go for all the
best offers. The site combines intuitive categorization and
design with unique editorial content and the perfect domain.
Site editors select the best service and retail offers, adding
ratings, descriptions and reviews. Offers.com is updated daily
and provides over 4,000 offers from 1,000 merchants in 150
categories. Steve has been involved in the Internet industry since
1995 and is an active speaker at industry conferences. Prior to
Vertive, he spent 10 years in product management and marketing
roles at companies including eRegCard and Symantec.

Jeremy Schoemaker

From unemployment to eight figures in only four years, Jeremy
“ShoeMoney” Schoemaker is a blogger’s “American dream.”
Starting with absolutely no capital, he educated himself and
began building ecommerce sites to earn revenue. During this
time, he started blogging his experiences at Shoemoney.com
and then used the blog to springboard new companies like
Auctionads, which had one of the most impressive launches of
any online advertising company ever. Jeremy continues to launch
new startups and also chronicles his adventures on his blog.

Speaker Bios
Alex Schultz

Alex Schultz has an MA, MSc. in Physics from Cambridge
university. He paid his way through college through ppc arbitrage
and seo. After college he joined eBay.co.uk moving to eBay HQ in
San Jose in 2005 where he subsequently managed international
paid search and affiliate marketing. He currently heads Facebook’s
internet marketing team as a manager in the growth, mobile and
international department focused on user growth, user activity
and advertiser acquisition.

Melanie Seery

Melanie Seery is the President and Founder of Affiliate Voice,
the organization which grew from the advocacy work that
earned Melanie the Affiliate Marketing Advocate 2009 Affiliate
Summit Pinnacle Award and the ShareASale Industry Advocate
Performance Award 2008. Co-chair of NY Affiliate meetings
and speaker at industry events in 2008, Melanie continues to
work on ways to improve the industry for everyone through
education and addressing critical industry issues including the
representation and protection of ethical affiliates and merchants.
She believes that all affiliates, merchants and networks need
to have voices. Also the owner of NYAffiliateVoice, Melanie
continues to speak out on various industry issues including the
internet tax issues. Melanie is also involved in several community
service projects including raising awareness, acceptance and
understanding of children with health challenges and serves as a
volunteer tutor in reading and math for both children and adults.

Carolyn Shelby

Carolyn Shelby has been involved in developing and marketing
Internet technologies since 1994, when she was the managing
partner of an Internet Service Provider start-up near Purdue
University. She has been professionally designing and developing
Web sites for businesses and not-for-profit groups of all sizes
since 1995. She is an advocate of including SEO in all phases of
the SDLC and encourages businesses to be “search aware” from
square one. She specializes in rehabbing under performing/
out-dated Web sites and helping larger corporations adjust their
structure and focus to make the most of new media. Carolyn
is based in Chicago and can be heard on the weekly SEO 101
podcast on BlogTalkRadio.com, or she can be found online at
Cshel Chicago SEO.

Joshua Sloan

Joshua Sloan is CEO of Sloan Technologies, advising leading
Internet Companies on their web marketing initiatives. Until
recently, he was Director of Online Marketing at 1&1 Internet,
the largest web hosting company in the industry – with a global
customer base of over 7.7 million. Joshua is truly dedicated to CPA
performance based marketing. First online in 1987, he describes
himself as a proud “second generation geek.” Engaged in online
marketing for several companies since 1994, Joshua has seen and
experienced the various changes in online marketing practices

and the ecommerce landscape. His speaking activities range from
private tutoring and public events, to teaching ecommerce and
web marketing to college students. Next to online marketing,
Joshua’s next favorite activities are mineral collecting and
encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit in those around him.
Favorite mantra: ‘Everything is possible’.

David Snyder

David Snyder is a search and social strategist who has worked on
both the agency and enterprise level. He currently co-owns his
own consulting group, Search & Social, LLC. He writes for several
web publications including MarketingPilgrim.com, SnydeySense.
com, and contributes a column on online reputation
management at SportsAgentsBlog.com.

Brian Solis

Brian Solis is Principal of, an award-winning PR and New Media
agency in Silicon Valley. Brian Solis is globally recognized for
his views and insights on the convergence of PR, Traditional
Media and Social Media. Considered one of the original thought
leaders who paved the way for Social Media and PR 2.0, Solis is
co-founder of the Social Media Club and is a founding member
of the Media 2.0 Workgroup. His PR 2.0 blog is among the top
1.5% of all blogs tracked by Technorati and is ranked as one of
the leading voices in the Ad Age Power 150 index of worldwide
marketing bloggers. He actively contributes his thoughts and
experiences through keynote speaking appearances, books,
articles and essays as a way of helping the marketing industry
understand and embrace the new dynamics fueling new
communications, marketing, and content creation. His new
book written with co-author Deirdre Breakenridge, “Putting the
Public back in Public Relations,” is now available at bookstores
nationwide.

Joe Stepniewski

Joe Stepniewski is the co-founder of Skimlinks, a service that
helps publishers monetize their content via affiliate marketing,
through converting outbound links into affiliate links on-thefly, providing a simplified process that aggregates together
over 20 affiliate networks. Joe works with a diverse range of
web publishers; with insights into reasons why big and small
publishers have traditionally not embraced affiliate marketing,
and how they are overcoming obstacles to make affiliate a
focus of their revenue strategy. Joe’s background, and passion,
is internet marketing: his other business buys/sells established
content and affiliate websites, hence specializes in refining,
driving traffic to and monetizing sites through SEO, PPC and
decent site design. Joe is a self-confessed geek, enjoys the tech
startup scene in London but misses the beaches and avocados of
his home country Australia.

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 57

Michael Streko

Michael fell into organic search when he was told by a former
employer to “make the company site show up on Google”. Fast
forward 3 years and Michael now owns Streko Media, which
operates a network of affiliate sites across multiple verticals.

Yuval Tal

Yuval Tal is CEO and founder of Payoneer, the online mass payout
solution that pays directly to universally accepted Prepaid
MasterCard® cards. He has over 20 years of experience in Internet
commerce-related technology startups, with in-depth expertise
in prepaid card applications, currency exchange and security
technologies. Before founding Payoneer in the spring of 2005,
Yuval co-founded E4X, a provider of services that expedite
cross-border payments on the Internet. The company was one of
the first in the industry to provide an efficient infrastructure for
global e-commerce. He grew the company to over $500 million
in processing volume and achieved profitability in record time
by winning numerous blue-chip accounts. Yuval also served as
vice president of business development for RADWARE (NASDAQ:
RDWR) and in an elite combat unit of the Israel Defense Forces.

Jonathan Treiber

Mr. Treiber is currently CEO and co-founder of RevTrax, a leading
technology company focused on tracking the impact of online
marketing efforts, including paid search, on offline retail sales.
Jonathan has led the company through its initial product
development, launch, several rounds of capital raising, team
expansion and several key business partnerships with major
media companies interested in RevTrax’s cross-channel tracking
technology. Jonathan is a serial entrepreneur and has been
actively involved in the online marketing space since June 2006
with a variety of businesses focused on the affiliate marketing,
particularly in the online loyalty space. Jonathan is an active
participant and speaker at many online marketing conferences.
Most recently, he was invited to present at Affiliate Summit West
in Las Vegas on the topic of tracking online advertising on offline
in-store sales. Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Arts, with distinction,
from Cornell University.

Michael Vorel

Michael Vorel is president and founder of Vastplanet Corporation,
a dynamic firm specializing in e-Commerce Web Development
and Internet Marketing Management for a variety of top
brands since 1998. Prior to Vastplanet, Michael worked within
the computer industry for ten years in international product
marketing, purchasing, sales management, pricing and strategic
analysis. He has expertise in affiliate marketing and management,
e-commerce web design, social networking strategy, video,
ppc, search, email marketing and competitive analysis. As an
affiliate marketer and outsourced affiliate program manager, he
is actively involved in creating niche and coupon sites in addition
to managing programs for clients. Based in Tampa, Florida,
Michael is a member of the Affiliate Summit Advisory Board and
58 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

recently helped with the formation of the Performance Marketing
Association.

Frank Watson

Frank Watson has been involved with the Web since it started. For
the past five years, he headed SEM for FXCM — at one time one
of the top 25 spenders with AdWords. He has worked with most
of the major analytics companies and pioneered the ability to
tie online marketing with offline conversion. He has now started
his own marketing agency, Kangamurra Media. This new venture
will keep him busy when he is not editing the Search Engine
Watch forums, blogging at a number of authoritative sites, and
developing some interesting online community sites. He was
one of the first 100 AdWords Professionals, a Yahoo and Overture
Ambassador, and a member or mod of many of the industry
forums. He is also on the Click Quality Council and has worked
hard to diminish click fraud.

Evan Weber

Evan Weber has been in online marketing since 1998 with his first
auction site. He then moved on to be the Director of Marketing
for Dentalplans.com, where he helped grow the company to 70
employees and 25,000 affiliates. Currently, he runs an affiliate
management agency in South Florida that has become one of the
leading Commission Junction program management companies
with 25 programs under management on CJ.

Pete Wellborn

Pete Wellborn is one of the most well-known practitioners
of Internet Law in the United States. For nearly fifteen years,
his primary practice focus has centered upon Internet Law.
Wellborn has successfully represented a wide variety of Internetrelated businesses and clients, including affiliate managers and
mailers charged with violations of CAN-SPAM. His practice areas
also include litigation and a wide array of technology-related
corporate, transactional, and IP services. Wellborn’s victories
have been featured in/on the Wall Street Journal, Boardwatch
magazine, CNN, 60 Minutes II, Newsday, NPR, and numerous other
media outlets. Wellborn has been recognized as one of the top
ten attorneys in the United States by Lawyers’ Weekly, as an “Elite
Attorney” by Georgia Trend magazine, and as a “Super Lawyer” by
Atlanta Magazine.

Karen White

Karen White is Vice President of Marketing at SquirtGun Media
Group, LLC., a performance marketing agency that specializes in
outsourced program management. As an OPM, Karen works with
corporate clients to define, develop and execute performance
marketing initiates. Prior to SquirtGun Media Group, she was
Vice President of Business Development & Marketing for Partner
Fusion, her role was to develop new agency accounts and oversee
strategic development of client initiatives. Over the years, Karen
has worked with companies such as Qwest Communications,
The Blue Man Group, and TaxBrain. In 2006, as Affiliate Program

Speaker Bios
Manager for Wynn Las Vegas, she received the Commission
Junction “People Horizon Award” for her excellence in affiliate
program management.

Chris Winfield

Chris is president and co-founder of 10e20, an Internet marketing
company that specializes in social media and search marketing
services. He is considered one of the leading authorities on social
media marketing in the world today. Chris has been featured in
multiple articles by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times,
USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, The Boston Globe, and over
100 other media outlets.

Woody Wood

Over the past three years as a product manager at Amazon.com,
Woody has overseen the design, development and launching of
many of the Associates Program’s affiliate related technologies.
These include the Omakase contextual links, the Associates
Widgets and the revamped Associates Central website. Prior
to Amazon.com, Woody was a Senior Research Scientist at the
Distributed Systems Technology Center (DSTC) – an Australian
research and technology transfer organization. Woody did
research and consulting in the areas of resource discovery,
large-scale distributed systems interoperability, and health

informatics. Woody drafted the Australian Governments technical
interoperability framework and consulted to Australian state
and federal agencies on the use of standardized metadata for
resource discovery. Woody has lectured in Distributed Computing
and represented the Australasian office of the W3C in promoting
the use of open standards for the development of Web-based
technologies.

Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is CEO of BlitzLocal.com, a 50 person agency based
in Westminster, Colorado, specializing in local lead gen via
integrating Facebook advertising with social media marketing,
pay-per-click advertising, directory listings, web analytics, and
call tracking. Clients include Quiznos, Equifax, AmazingMail,
Famous Daves, and other national retail and franchised outlets.
The company was funded by Markus Frind of PlentyofFish.
com in 2006. Dennis is a 14 year veteran of online marketing
via Yahoo! and American Airlines. He has spoken at SMX West,
SMX Singapore, SMX Sydney, Affiliate Convention. He and his
teammates also provide pro bono Google Adwords management
to select non-profits, including March of Dimes, Grameen
Foundation, American Rivers, International Rescue Committee,
and others.

Brian Hawkins

By Brian Hawkins

Multicultural Affiliate Marketing
You’ve invested a lot of time and
money testing PPC on dozens of
offers. Once you believe you’ve found
a profitable niche, its time to go
global.
Attracting international traffic is
relatively inexpensive because
few merchants know how to best
monetize it. Also, there are large,
identifiable international markets to
target online. Facebook alone has
nearly 10 million Spanish-speaking
users worldwide, a million of which
are in the U.S.
Experience a New Culture
One of the most valuable assets for
anyone marketing to an international
audience is personal experience of the
target customers’ culture. Fortunately,
one of the best perks of affiliate
marketing is that in most cases you
can work from anywhere in the world.
Take super-affiliate Josh from
ScrappyBusiness.com, for example.
He was able to travel the globe
after just three months as an
affiliate marketer. Josh found rental
apartments with Internet access on
Craigslist, all the while immersing
himself in the local cultures.

60 | AUGUST 2009 | FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE

Build an Offshore Team
Smart affiliate marketers are building
strategic offshore teams. Try freelance
site Odesk.com or Craigslist to find
staff that can help you translate
and position your offers for specific
cultures. You might be surprised how
easy and cost-effective it can be to
build a virtual off-shore team of highly
motivated, college-educated staff.
“Translate” a New Affiliate Niche
Taking the simple step of translating
your copy will dramatically set
you apart from most competitors.
Using translation software tools or
WordPress plug-ins are quick, but they
are far from foolproof. These programs
have limits, and native translators will
ensure you are connecting to your
target market with the correct dialect.
Multicultural Inroads
Always keep in mind that many
ethnic groups rely heavily on word
of mouth to build trust when making
purchasing decisions. With this in
mind, try personally connecting
through social media and by building
landing pages that help convey this
trust.
Also, consider sponsoring ethnic
events, or taking advantage of the

lower advertising rates that often
exist at media outlets such as local
radio stations. The point is to be
creative and avoid some of the
bigger ad channels that charge a
premium for U.S. ethnic targeting.
Finally, know that you’re not going
to get it 100% right on the first
try. Keep enhancing your cultural
knowledge, offers and vehicles to
be on the path for international
stardom.

Brian Hawkins has worked for two
leading SEO agencies prior to his
ethnic internet marketing focus as
an Affiliate Marketing Manager for
Pingo.com’s global telecom affiliate
program, which pays up to a $35.00
CPA on Linkshare.

4 Characteristics
of Successful Affiliate
Program Managers
By Geno Prussakov

Geno Prussakov

Have you ever wondered what makes an excellent affiliate
program manager? What characteristics should one strive to
possess to succeed in this capacity?
In the course of over twenty-five years two luminaries of the
organizational leadership, James Kouzes and Berry Posner, have
been studying the characteristics of admired leaders. One of the
methods they used was a survey with an open-ended question:
“What values, personal traits, or characteristics do you look for
and admire in a leader?”
Several hundred different traits and characteristics were
gathered, analyzed, and documented. The striking part was
that in the course of decades some of the same characteristics
were consistently brought up regardless of the countries and
continents where the survey participants lived. These top four
characteristics were: (i) honest, (ii) forward-looking, (iii) inspiring,
and (iv) competent. As obvious from the table below, these four
scored significantly higher than the other ones mentioned:

Top 15 Characteristics of Admired Leaders
Characteristics

2007
edition

2002
edition

1995
edition

1987
edition

Honest

89%

88%

88%

83%

Forward-looking

71%

71%

75%

62%

Inspiring

69%

65%

68%

58%

Competent

68%

66%

63%

67%

Intelligent

48%

47%

40%

43%

Fair-minded

39%

42%

49%

40%

Straightforward

36%

34%

33%

34%

Broad-minded

35%

40%

40%

37%

Supportive

35%

35%

41%

32%

Dependable

34%

33%

32%

33%

Cooperative

25%

28%

28%

25%

Courageous

25%

20%

29%

27%

Determined

25%

24%

17%

17%

Caring

22%

20%

23%

26%

Imaginative

17%

23%

28%

34%

What can we learn from the above data?
I believe the top four characteristics to also be the cornerstones
of successful affiliate program management. Forward-looking
implies a “well-defined orientation toward the future” and vision;
inspiring is about enthusiasm, drive and motivation; competent
reflects a well of knowledge that never goes dry; but it is honesty
that is the greatest and the most valued characteristic.
No matter whether it is a military leader, a president of a country,
a CEO of a corporation, or an affiliate program manager, people
want to be confident in their leaders; and confidence is always
dependent on the leader’s integrity. Most frequently integrity
gets challenged when an affiliate program manager commits a
mistake. We need to remember that it is okay to commit mistakes.
It is how we deal with them that shows who we really are.
One of my favorite quotes about mistakes comes from Dr. Dale E.
Turner who said that “the highest form of self-respect” is “to admit
our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a
mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is
discovered shows infirmity of character.”
Admitting mistakes only builds up one’s integrity, and shows an
individual as one possessing a strong and solid character.
Another element that is extremely important to remember is
that one’s honesty is always tied to values and ethics. Know your
principles and stand up for them. This is especially important
in an industry as vulnerable to unethical behavior as affiliate
marketing.

Geno Prussakov is the CEO of AM Navigator, and author of “A
Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing” and “Online Shopping
Through Consumers’ Eyes.

The following is an uncensored view into the opinions of
affiliates on a variety of subjects.
Affiliates were asked to share any complaints, ideas,
suggestions or opinions they have regarding affiliate
marketing in the Affiliate Summit AffStat Report survey.
• Please add Carousel Widgets.
• 1. Don’t lie...the truth is too easily found out. 2. If you’re
new, get training from other experienced AMs 3. Don’t
cut me off because I only promote one or two products
right now. Down the line, I may do a site where I can
promote more. 4. Don’t ask me to promote products
that my site readers would have no interest in.
• I hate it when I reply to an unsolicited manager email
because it has relevance to me and then the manager
does not reply. I have quit programs over this. If you
aren’t going to respond to me why bother sending me
mail? Also, stop treating Canadian affiliates (and nonUSA publishers for that matter) like second class citizens.
Some of us perform much better than “homeland” based
publishers while honestly working within your service
agreements. This is a global industry - keep this in mind
and you will find some amazing markets out there.
• Notification of a “Big Weekend Sale” on Friday night isn’t
going anywhere. Get us the information in time to fit it
into a busy schedule. Respond to emails, don’t set your
email filters so tight that you can’t receive plain text with
a link question.
• NO toolbars in affiliate marketing.
• I’ve been an affiliate manager, so I know the difficult job

they have ... trying to please the merchants, their bosses
and the affiliates ... all at the same time. Dealing with a
wide range of personalities isn’t easy either. My biggest
issue is always communication. If there is an issue, it is
handled and I know why there is a problem. Being well
compensated is an issue too. I also like affiliate managers
who follow up and ensure I meet the commitments I
made.
• I sell nearly $3 Million per year (gross sales) with zero
PPC. Keep your programs clean (no parasites) if you
want to grab my attention.
• Know what you’re talking about. How can I ask a
question if I know that you don’t know the answer?
• I hate having to look all over the site for links for ads.
I feel that all new links should be found in the links
management area of the merchant. If not then all new
ads should be provided with personal links.
• If it were possible to program e-mails to contain the
types of links requested by affiliates and only those
links it would greatly speed up the process of changing
them out on sites. It would be nice if affiliates were
told in advance of things that affect their sites rather
than after the event - for example, telling an affiliate
that a merchant has made a decision that affects links
immediately rather than as of, say, 7 days hence, is
assuming that affiliates have nothing more pressing
to do than make changes to links the instant they are
asked to!
• My main compliment to good affiliate managers goes
to those who are willing to work with me on my level.
They don’t assume I know everything and are willing

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 63

Unplugged
to let me learn. My biggest complaint goes to those
affiliate managers who send me invitations to join their
program “after looking at my site” and then reject me
when I apply to their program. Or they approve me and
then delete me after a month or so because of “poor
performance”, but they never contact me to work with
me.

theme is simply to push an affiliate program without
providing any useful content, what’s the point?
• Call us more often, and plan meetings with us in
person at conferences. Stop the blog blasts and email
newsletters.
• More AM need to communicate with affiliates.

• Of all the affiliate companies I am signed under with,
I am hoping they are all honest with paying out to
the affiliates like me. One time I felt like I didn’t trust
a big affiliate network and sometimes others. I wish
there would be investigators to check these affiliate
companies with their honesty.

• That publishers only have a limited amount of space for
sales ads and needs to be taken into consideration when
sending out emails. Weekly sales are better than daily as
most affiliates have more than one merchant and they
can become bogged down with emails. It is sometimes
hard to answer 300 to 1,000 emails a day!

• The affiliate tools are either too complicated or severely
lacking. Interfaces are usually too cluttered and the
search options rarely work. Also, merchants should be
required to provide basic banners such as the 125x125,
120x30|60|90 and 468x60. Skyscrapers, half-page, etc
suck up too much screen real estate. Lastly, what’s
with this nonsense of dropping an affiliate if they don’t
make a sale in 6 months? If I’m serving up your ads, that
means I’m getting your eyeballs. Maybe people just
aren’t interested in your products!

• I’m at that stage where I’m finding a balance. A wellestablished merchant without PopShops will lose to a
new merchant WITH PopShops.

>

• It seems that if you don’t make any sales you get left
alone. When money starts rolling in everyone wants
to start asking questions. Affiliate marketing is a cut
throat business. Many tactics take time and money
to learn and affiliates should not be bombarded with
questions having to explain how they market. If there
is no spamming or deception involved, does it really
matter? Everyone is making money and isn’t that what
it’s all about.
• I’d like to see more of them accept incentive traffic. As
long as you don’t misrepresent the merchant it shouldn’t
matter where the sales or leads come from as long as
they are reliable.
• Affiliate programs have too low a return rate. For a
targeted site it should be higher than a mass marketer
(think niche marketing). ROI is too low given the
constant work involved. I would like to see more
partnerships, for instance, if I run targeted sites I would
lease that site to the advertiser rather than work with
straight affiliate programs. I own targeted sites & once
the economy improves I will sell them rather than work
for a low ROI. Not worth the marketing effort under the
current conditions.
• I get the heebie jeebies when I see/read a lot of the
affiliate marketing stuff out there. To me, an affiliate
program should match the site’s theme. If your site’s

• I think AM’s need to scour their data. Even if there are
solutions in place, they only work as good as your data;
the keywords, prod names, descriptions, etc. The data
you have for your site is far different than what I need
to promote those items on my site. Cut the gibberish
and give me shorter descriptions. Include keywords
that customers would search for outside of your site.
You have to think outside of your site to really provide
valuable data to your affiliates. Any kind of industry
news or alerts are great to share. Your affiliates will
absorb your passion for this as a career and not just a
quick buck.
• Not being able to directly talk with the merchant. The
“separation” of merchant and affiliate by networks and
3rd party AM’s discourages productive collaboration.
• Stop sending useless emails. 5 emails from one program
in a week is WAY TOO MUCH! Sending them once a
month requires planning, but you are supposed to be a
manager.
Get the 2009 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report for free at
http://www.affstat.com.

Why Intergration
Matters for
Affiliate Marketing
Debbie Bookstaber

By Debbie Bookstaber

It seems clear that affiliate marketing should be an obvious
win-win proposition for both advertisers and publishers. Affiliate
marketing reduces financial risk and upfront costs associated
with traditional marketing.
Since advertisers pay for performance, affiliate programs are
among the most cost-efficient marketing channels. So why do
so many companies view affiliate marketing as risky or even
detrimental?
Although publishers work with advertisers, they do not work for
them. Affiliate marketing requires advertisers to sacrifice control.
As a result, tension exists between affiliate program managers
and marketing departments.
Whether you’re a publisher or an Outsourced Program Manager
(“OPM”), it pays to understand how others view the industry.
Brand managers worry that placing their banners on affiliate
websites “cheapens” the brand. Search managers are concerned
with brand management and competition. Marketing managers
claim that respected loyalty sites such as Upromise, Ebates and
FatWallet cannibalize sales.

who reap the benefits of publishers’ expertise in SEM, SEO, loyalty
marketing, and social media.
Gaining executive support is critical. Affiliate marketing must be
seen, not as an add-on program or as a competitor, but rather
as a key part of the strategic plan to increase revenue. After
setting and enforcing program terms on trademark bidding,
advertisers find that “search affiliates” strengthen the company’s
search presence—blocking the competition, identifying longtail keywords and increasing reach. Placement on comparison,
coupon and cash-back websites also increases sales.
Above all, executives are concerned with the bottom line, and
the bottom line is affiliate marketing, done right, is extremely
profitable.

Debbie Bookstaber is the Director of Strategy at The JAR Group,
www.thejargroup.com, an interactive marketing agency, which
delivers a suite of online services that integrate search marketing,
online advertising, affiliate marketing, social media, market
research, and more, to grow our client’s revenue.

An affiliate program’s success or failure is a result not just of
commissions but rather of the level of integration with the
advertiser’s marketing plan.
When an affiliate program is integrated with the overall
marketing strategy, publishers complement advertisers’ branding,
sales and search efforts. Correctly managed performance
marketing aligns the goals of publishers with those of advertisers,

FEEDFRONT MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2009 | 65

People to Follow

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